A Vietnamese cannabis gardener has been jailed after police found him ensconced in a huge drug factory surrounded by hundreds of marijuana plants worth nearly a quarter of a million pounds.

Manh Nguyen, 18, was arrested at the house in West Lea Avenue, Harrogate, where he had been tending 460 plants inside a sophisticated cannabis factory equipped with irrigation and temperature systems, York Crown Court heard.

Nguyen, of no fixed address, was charged with being concerned in the production of a Class B drug but denied the allegation, claiming he had been trafficked to the UK to work as a cannabis gardener and was a victim of modern slavery.

The teenager was due to face trial today but entered a last-minute guilty plea to the charge, notwithstanding the fact the authorities had found he had been trafficked and was working effectively as a modern slave. 

The Crown proceeded straight to sentence knowing that any jail sentence would be negated by the amount of time Nguyen had spent on remand.

Prosecutor Brooke Morrison said police discovered the bumper cannabis harvest on August 11 last year after raiding the property in Harrogate. 

She added:

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Defence barrister Harry Crowson said Nguyen had come to the UK after being trafficked from Vietnam. He quickly found himself being in debt to his criminal bosses and “taking instructions for a period of time”.

He said that at one stage Nguyen escaped from his criminal bosses and was given social housing, but the criminal gang found him and “brought him back to this same life”.

He said Nguyen’s captors had given him instructions to keep the front garden tidy by cutting the grass, but only gave him a pair of scissors with which to do so.

Mr Crowson said neighbours saw Nguyen performing the pathetic task “either under instruction to keep the grass tidy or because he was in the property with nothing else to occupy his time”.

Mr Crowson added:

He said that Nguyen had been on custodial remand since August last year and had already served the equivalent of a one-year-jail sentence.

Used as a 'modern slave'

He said that had Nguyen played a “leading role…in this cannabis factory”, he would have given him “as long a sentence as I possibly could”, but that wasn’t the case.

Nguyen received an eight-month jail sentence, but he had already served the equivalent period on remand.

However, the judge warned him: 

The court heard that the authorities were looking into Nguyen’s possible deportation.