POLICE responding to a ‘frantic’ caller claiming he was being burgled found just one man and his dog – and a ‘cannabis farm’, a court was told.

John Kershaw, 41, was on an upstairs front window sill, screaming and almost clambering out of the window. He was shouting ‘help me’ over and over again.

When an officer asked what was wrong, he yelled: “They are in my house. They are beating my aunties.”

Burnley magistrates heard how the officer forced entry to the premises in Thomas Street, Colne.

He found just Kershaw and his dog, plus three cannabis plants growing and the electricity meter ‘quite dangerously’ by-passed. The defendant was later found to have taken £779 electricity.

Kershaw, a long-standing cannabis addict who has two previous convictions for cultivating the drug, admitted producing cannabis and abstracting electricity, on June 23. He was bailed until July 18 for a pre-sentence report.

Geoff Ireland, for Kershaw, said: “He has used cannabis for a long period of time, within the confines of his own home. He doesn’t sell it. He’s not a wealthy man.”