Cannabis 'gardener' jailed over Black Country drugs farm
A 53-year-old man who worked as a “gardener”at a cannabis factory has been sentenced to two years in prison.
Tuan Van Le, of no fixed address, looked after 200 plants at the address in Lichfield Street, Tipton, before it was raided by police on July 26, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.
Officers found a “small cannabis operation on a commercial scale” at the site where Le was living, said judge Michael Chambers QC.
At the time, Le was on license from prison for a similar offence relating to a cannabis factory in Walsall, where he tended to 110 plants.
He was jailed on a charge of producing cannabis after he pleaded guilty to the offence at an earlier hearing.
Le was released from prison on May 1 but "re-offended in the same way within a very short time", said Mr Chambers.
The defendant - who required a Vietnamese translator - told police he spent 22 days at the factory in Tipton where he was also offered accommodation.
The plants were growing in a hydroponic set up where Le was "essentially a gardener", said the judge.
He was deemed to have had a "lesser role" in the commercial operation - reducing his culpability in the sentencing guidelines.
Grow
But Mr Chambers said: "It is accepted yours was a lesser role but you must have been aware of the scale of operation."
The court heard about Le's earlier offence where he previously worked as a "gardener" at a cannabis factory in Walsall between February 1 and June 19, 2019.
The operation also had a hydroponic set up and electricity was being bypassed to help grow the plants.
Le was jailed in August of last year for 21 months.
For his latest offence, Le was ordered to serve two years in prison with half of that released on license.
But the defendant was warned he would return to custody if he re-offended.
Mr Chambers ordered that all the cannabis plants and associated “drugs paraphernalia” from the Tipton site should be destroyed.
