THE jury in the retrial of a caretaker accused of allowing historic wartime tunnels near Kidderminster to be used as a cannabis factory has retired to consider its verdict.

Wayne Robinson, aged 48, of Marlpool Lane, Kidderminster, denies allowing the production of a controlled drug when he was managing the site.

Worcester Crown Court has heard that police found 900 cannabis plants, which could produce a yield worth £70,000, growing in one of the Drakelow Tunnels at Wolverley in November 2013.

The prosecution alleges that Robinson, who had been caretaker of the network of tunnels since the 1990s, must have been aware of what was going on.

But Robinson claims he rented the tunnel to two men, known only as Thomas and Fabian, for £200 a month for storage and never suspected that drugs were being produced there.

He was in tears during the trial, when he told the jury that his tenants, from the Black Country, had threatened to "bury him" in a dispute about keys to the complex after he gave them notice to quit because of rubbish they left lying around.

Judge Abbas Mithani QC, summing up to the jury before they retired to consider their verdict just after lunchtime on Friday (June 24), said members of the public, police and press had attended events at the tunnels - where there was a plan to create a museum - and none of them had noticed any smell of cannabis.

The jury members will return to continue their deliberations today (June 27).