Man jailed after police find £100K worth of cannabis in house turned drug factory

Officers acting on information went to the address in Chapel Garth, Ackworth, Pontefract, but could smell cannabis when they got to the address, Philip Adams prosecuting told Leeds Crown Court yesterday.

No one answered when they knocked on the door but they could hear someone inside and eventually forced their way in.

They then found Vietnamese national Ly Pham hiding under the kitchen sink.

A search of the property then revealed 295 cannabis plants growing in two first floor bedrooms and the attic which had been converted into cannabis factory.

There was also evidence that a cannabis crop might have previously been grown in another room.

Pham, 40, was jailed for 28 months after admitting producing cannabis and illegally abstracting electricity.

Kama Melly said Pham had hoped to make a better life for himself working in the UK but found himself acting as the “gardener” for the plants when someone else left. He faced deportation to Vietnam after his sentence.

Jailing Pham, Judge Geoffrey Marson QC said it was “commercial cultivation” of cannabis making significant profits for the organisers.