This week's most-read stories (+links)

BUST: This indoor cannabis growing operation at Hannahs Bay led to a jail term. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

Top stories this week

1 Dope grower stole $17,685 of power
2 Ngati Whakaue mourns sudden loss of stalwart
3 Internet Mana pulls hundreds in Rotorua
4 Rugby: Steamers throw new faces, hefty back line at Saracens
5 Mana Party receives backing from big guns

This week's most read story online was about a Rotorua man who stole almost $18,000 worth of electricity to power a cannabis-growing operation in his Hannahs Bay home.

John Kenneth David, 53, was sentenced in Rotorua District Court on Tuesday to three years and 10 months' jail after previously admitting cultivation of cannabis, unlawful possession of a firearm and theft of $17,685 of power. The sentence also covered separate convictions for assaulting a police officer, refusing a blood alcohol test and dangerous driving.

Police searched David's Charles Rd home on July 1 last year and found a large, well-established indoor cannabis cultivating operation on a commercial scale.

Cannabis was being grown in a sleepout and two bedrooms, which had been converted with ventilation systems, fans, digital climate and humidity gauges, growing platforms and 400 watt lamps.

In the sleepout police found 10 "mother plants" averaging 120cm in height and 286 "clone plants" between 5cm and 12cm tall.

In the bedrooms there were 187 plants, averaging 30cm in one room and 60cm in the other.

A further 2.06kg of cannabis leaf was found stashed throughout the house. A shotgun was also found under a bed.

Also featuring in the top five were two stories about the Mana Party - the Internet Mana roadshow hit Rotorua on Tuesday as election fever mounts.