A Vietnamese teenager was employed to care for hundreds of cannabis plants being cultivated at a house in Sunderland after entering the country illegally.
The 17-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, claimed he did not realise the plants, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, were cannabis when he moved into the house in Sea Road, Fulwell, which had been converted into a cannabis farm.
B
ut District Judge Roger Elsey found him guilty of being concerned in the cultivation of cannabis after the defendant said he eventually realised something was wrong.
The court heard that the house had been sealed from the outside world with screens and was equipped with all the paraphernalia for growing cannabis – hydroponic lamps, drums of plant foot, tinfoil to reflect the heat and holes in the chimney breast for ventilation.
Andrew Wastall, prosecuting, said police found more than 400 cannabis plants and several bags of plucked cannabis leaves when police raided the house on June 10.
They searched the house and found the teenager hiding in a cupboard in an upstairs bedroom.
When questioned, he said he had entered the country in January and had been at the house for about two months, feeding and watering the plants, before he was arrested.
He said all he knew was he was working for somebody called "Hung", a Vietnamese aged about 30, and wasn't sure if what he was doing was legal or illegal.
The court heard that he had been picked up in London by Hung after paying $12,000 to fly out of Vietnam, been brought to Sunderland and told he would be paid £700 to £800 a month, with food, clothing and accommodation provided, for feeding and watering the plants.
Giving evidence through an interpreter, the teenager said at first he thought the plants were Chinese herbal medicine, but he later suspected something was wrong because he was not allowed to go out of the house during his stay there.
If Hung wanted to come in, he would telephone and the teenager would let him in, before being ordered to delete Hung's number from his mobile phone so he could not be traced.
Cross-examined by Mr Wastall, he said he had hid in the cupboard because he thought somebody had broken into the house and might beat him up. He did not realise they were police.
Judge Elsey said it would be easy to have sympathy for the defendant, but he was satisfied that the experience had given him reason to suspect that he was involved in the cultivation of a controlled drug, not an innocent herb.
Ordering the destruction of the cannabis, he adjourned the case until September 4 for pre-sentence reports. Bail was withheld.
The full article contains 465 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
