Five men are standing trial accused of running the biggest cannabis farm discovered in Leicester.

The operation was at the disused Sky Fashions hosiery factory, off Saffron Lane.

Police called to a suspected burglary on September 28 last year found about 4,400 cannabis plants.

The men, who all deny operating the cannabis farm, are on trial at Leicester Crown Court.

At the opening of the case yesterday, Adrian Harris, for the prosecution, said: "Police were called to an old factory on Cyprus Road between 2am and 3am one day in late September.

"A local resident had gone outside to have a cigarette and heard voices. He thought there might have been a break-in and called the police.

"It wasn't a burglary. As one officer got to the front of the factory, the door opened and out came an Oriental man. The officer told him to stand still and when he tried to disappear back inside, the officer grabbed him."

Mr Harris said the officers smelled the cannabis plants and called for back-up.

While police set up a cordon around the area, a police dog found one man inside the factory and another four people hiding in a bush.

Another man was found in an alleyway outside the factory with a broken leg. Mr Harris said he had apparently fallen from the roof of the building.

The defendants are four Chinese men, Jian Chen, 27, Zhi Lin, 28, Ming Fen Wu, 37, and Xiao Chen, 30, who are believed to have lived in the factory, and the factory's leaseholder, Mohammad Khan, 54, of St Paul's Avenue, Willesden, London.

Mr Harris said: "This trial is about the largest ever cannabis farm discovered in Leicester.

"Four of these defendants were workers, with Mohammad Khan higher up the chain running things.

"What had been going on in there had clearly been going on for a long time and a great deal of money had been spent on equipment."

Mr Harris described how a false wall of boxes had been created so that anyone looking inside would assume the building was being used for storage.

He said the electricity meter had been bypassed so the gang did not have to pay to power dozens of lights and extractor fans in the building.

About £60,000 of electricity had been stolen in this way.

Stems and pots led police to believe another 2,250 plants had already been harvested.

The trial continues.