Electricity to an entire Purley street was cut off after officers from the Purley Safer Neighbourhoods Team discovered 600 plants in a residential cannabis factory.

The house, in Oakwood Avenue, had the electricity bypassed and had a complex system of lighting, heating and extraction fans running through all four bedrooms.

Revenue protection officers from EDF had to cut off the electricity after they deemed it too dangerous to enter the property with it still running.

The house contained around 600 cannabis plants filling four rooms of the detached property.

A 19-year-old girl from Vietnam was arrested at the scene on suspicion of the production controlled drugs. She is currently in custody at a South London Police station awaiting questioning.

A Croydon Police spokeswoman said: "This is an example of Purley SNT working closely with our partners to take a supplier of cannabis out of the neighbourhood and to make a potentially dangerous property safe."