Small boat migrant caught at commercial scale cannabis farm jailed and faces deportation

Police had received a tip-off that a terraced property at Tunstall Terrace, Sunderland was being used to grow the class B drug.

Newcastle Crown Court heard officers forced entry in December last year and discovered six "growing rooms" containing 150 plants.

The house had been adapted with specialist equipment to grow the plants and the electricity at the property had been bypassed.

Video footage taken by police shows one of the officers pull back what appears to be plastic sheeting to enter one of the rooms, which contains lighting and ventilation equipment and is packed with plants.

Pictures showed the rooms in the cannabis factory no longer resembled those of being in a residential property and were covered in growing equipment and crops.

Albanian national Aldo Aliaj, 19, of no fixed address, was arrested inside the house and pleaded guilty to production of a controlled drug.

Prosecutor Glenn Gatland said Aliaj has no convictions on his record and told the court: "He said he came to the UK in August 2022 as a illegal immigrant crossing the channel."

Jennifer Coxon, defending, said Aliaj accepted being a "gardener" at the property and added: "He is in this country illegally, having travelled via a small boat across the English channel to this country.

"He sought to seek a better life and obtain funds in order to help his father's ill health."

Miss Coxon said Aliaj had initially been detained by Border Force officers and taken to a detention centre where he was pressured by some Albanian males to travel to Sunderland and tend to the cannabis farm.

Miss Coxon added: "He is extremely remorseful. He accepts he has not made the correct decisions in seeking a better life and understands it is likely he will be deported back to Albania."

Recorder Rebecca Brown sentenced Aliaj to 12 months behind bars.

She said the cannabis farm was capable of producing "significant quantities for commercial use" and the property had been adapted using specialist equipment.

Recorder Brown told Aliaj: "Because you are a foreign national and the sentence I have imposed is imprisonment you are liable in principle to automatic deportation."

The recorder added that there could be a delay in the deportation process or there may be reasons why the provisions do not apply to Aliaj.