By Sam Russell, EDP 24
More than 200 cannabis plants were found when police raided a house in Osborne Road last month, Norwich Crown Court heard yesterday.
Cannabis factory (RODGER BOSCH/AFP/GettyImages)
A 20-year-old Vietnamese man had been tending to the crop after falling “prey” to people involved in the black market, the prosecution said.
Martin Ivory, prosecuting, said Tien Nguyen fled through a window when officers arrived, but was found hiding under a motor vehicle by a nearby school and was arrested.
He has been sentenced to two years in a young offenders institute, and to be treated as a “high priority candidate” for deportation on his release due to the high possibility of him absconding.
Nguyen had decided to leave Vietnam at the age of 13 in search of a better life, arriving in the UK on the bottom of a lorry after a year-long land journey through Russia and Europe, the court heard.
Mr Ivory said Nguyen had been living in London before moving to Norwich to look after a cannabis factory for a Vietnamese couple, watering and cutting the plants.
Nguyen refused to name the people higher up in the chain, but admitted producing cannabis.
Jonathan Goodman, mitigating, said Nguyen had arrived in the UK in search of a better life but within months of arriving he was recruited into a criminal enterprise.
Nguyen was previously convicted for his role as gardener at two cannabis factories in the Greater Manchester area in 2009.
Read the full story by Sam Russell from EDP 24.
