Two cannabis gardeners jailed over drug factory

The property in Hillcrest Avenue, Chapeltown, had been converted into a cannabis factory with lights, transformers and ventilation.

The search, on April 15, revealed 110 plants growing in the cellar while there were more plants in the three bedrooms upstairs as well as other matured plants drying, Patricia Doherty, prosecuting, told Leeds Crown Court yesterday.

There were 14 containers of plant food in the bathroom while two Vietnamese "gardeners" were arrested in the living room where they were sleeping. Both were in the country illegally.

One later claimed to police he thought they had been only growing tomato plants for which he had been promised 200 a week but never received any money.

Nam Nguyen, 34 and Viet Hung Nguyen, 20, were each sentenced to two years in custody after admitting producing cannabis.

Sentencing them, Judge Kerry Macgill said he did not accept the claim one thought it was tomato plants they were growing and was satisfied both knew what they were doing.

The house had the typical set up of the cannabis factory and the organisers behind such farms required people like the defendants to act as gardeners, superintending the feeding and watering of the plants.

"And as is often the case unfortunately it is you people at the bottom end of the production line that are caught not the men with the money and the organisational skills."

David Tyrer, defending, said his client had been put under pressure.