05/10/2007 00:00:00
UK: Cannabis grower faces prison term
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The "gardener" who tended hundreds of cannabis plants at a farmhouse in
a Norfolk village was warned yesterday that he faced a prison sentence.
Thirty-year-old Toan Nguyen-Anh appeared before magistrates charged with
growing cannabis plants worth tens of thousands of pounds at a farmhouse
at Kenninghall, near Diss.
The Vietnamese speaker admitted to one count of producing the controlled
drug between July 31 and September 26 at the home in Fersfield Road,
which was converted into a drugs factory.
Nguyen-Anh was arrested at the four-bedroom farmhouse in Kenninghall
last week following a series of drug seizures by Norfolk Police's
western area CID tactical unit, which also included the discovery of a
cannabis factory at Lyng, near Dereham, and a haul of ecstasy tablets in
King's Lynn.
Kevin Eastwick, prosecuting, yesterday told Thetford Magistrates' Court
that officers found the defendant in the farm building at Kenninghall,
which had been "converted completely" for growing cannabis plants.
"The police say they found 385 plants growing inside along with the
lighting and heating equipment that is needed. Mr Nguyen-Anh has
accepted that he was the gardener. He says he was put there by others to
care for the plants on a daily basis," he said.
Mr Eastwick said the shortest custodial sentence he had found for
producing cannabis was 12 months for growing 75 plants and the jail term
would go up according to the sophistication and the number of plants seized.
"The mitigating factors would be how closely connected he was with the
set-up of the operation," he said.
Mr Eastwick added that inquiries were continuing to establish whether
Nguyen-Anh was either a Vietnamese or Slovakian national. Magistrates
remanded him in custody until his sentencing at Norwich Crown Court on a
date to be fixed.
Following the hearing, western area Supt Nick Dean said the
investigation was ongoing.
"This case comes after some recent high-profile drugs operations in the
west of the county and shows that they were not one-off hits. We have
the capacity to continually act on information and target the controlled
drugs trade on a daily basis.
"Carefully planned operations such as this one are often the culmination
of weeks or even months spent gathering intelligence," he said.
http://new.edp24.co.uk/
Source:
http://www.ukcia.org/news/shownewsarticle.php?articleid=12884
Author:
via UKCIA
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