The distinct smell emanating from the house at the end of the cul-de-sac had been familiar to the neighbours for years. But when masked gangsters forced their way into the property, demanding its occupants hand over their cannabis stash, the middle-aged couple were understandably bewildered.

The couple, it emerged, had a plant growing in their front garden commonly called Caucasian Crosswort, which gives off a smell resembling cannabis, and which the bungling burglars appear to have mistaken for the drug.

On discovering that the house was not, in fact, a cannabis factory, the gang made off instead with cash and other personal items.