The mean streets of Finsbury need a new kind of crime chief, the kind who isn’t afraid to pound the beat and get his hands dirty.

Enter Cllr Paul Convery, Islington’s executive member for community safety, who discovered two cannabis plants on a recent Finsbury Estate walkabout.

Taking matter into his own hands, he ripped up the illegal shrubs and threw them in the bin.

Speaking about spotting the plants, he said: “I was walking around with a few chums looking at the really fabulous flower beds. I suddenly looked and said ‘what have we got there?’ It was a cannabis plant – in fact it was two.

“Cllr Hull, who was with me, said ‘if you’re a so called crime chief who sees cannabis growing what do yo do? You rip it up’.

“So I yanked them out and buried them deep in the rubbish bin with garbage bags on top. They’ll be on their way to the landfill by now.

“Mind you, I bet some people still say I should have put them in the recycling bin.”