Vietnamese cannabis 'gardener' jailed for two years | United Kingdom

Vietnamese cannabis 'gardener' jailed for two years

Once upon a time it was all to easy to succumb to the hard luck stories and feel sorry for these poor, victimised Vietnamese citizens who travel to the UK by any means, in search of a better life, only to end up victims themselves. Pawns in a lucrative organised crime game which earns someone somewhere, millions of pounds every year.

But a couple of years on and they continue to come. The government seem powerless to stop refugee's wandering with impunity through the Channel Tunnel and onto UK soil, with the ramifications for national security both clear and apparent.

Obviously a 2 year jail term isn't putting anyone off coming to work in GB as a cannabis gardener, so clearly its down to Whitehall to come up with a solution to how and why these people keep arriving by the truck-load, only to end up in British jails until such time they have served their time, and are released, only to be housed, to be given health care and social security benefits.

The conspiracy theorists amongst us could almost picture this as part of a grand plan to guarantee entry into the UK. Get caught. Get jailed, and you're in!

And the government seems happy to play its part, by ignoring the thousands of illegal immigrants who enter the UK's multi-million pound black economy every year.

It makes you wonder how the Houses of Parliament are still standing? Have not yet been blown to kingdom come in a terrorist attack. More by luck than judgement it would appear, as the Heathrow protestors proved recently.

A CANNABIS "gardener" who plunged his family into debt trying to help them live a better life has been jailed.

Vu Pham (27) was arrested by police in an early morning raid on a drugs factory in Peterborough during the Making A Difference week in Millfield on January 29.

He had arrived in Peterborough from Vietnam in November last year as an illegal immigrant, after being promised a job and a better life in the city. He said he had planned to send the money he earnt back to his wife in Vietnam.

But after spending all their money travelling to Britain,when he arrived he found he had been misled, and there was no job waiting for him.

Instead, he became caught up in the cannabis factory in Millfield, working as a “gardener” so he had a roof over his head and enough food for him to live on.

When police raided the semi-detached house in Clarence Road, they found Pham sleeping on a thin mattress on the kitchen floor.

He
told police he had moved in just a couple of weeks before, and spent all day looking after hundreds of plants, spread between five rooms – the bathroom had even had the fittings removed to make room for smaller seedlings to be grown.

Peterborough Crown Court heard that the plants had not yet reached maturity when they were discovered, but after harvest Pham would have been paid £3,000 for his work.

The plants ranged from being just two weeks old, to nearly two months, and if they had been harvested would have had an estimated £120,000 street value.

Cheryl Williams, prosecuting, said that to convert the house into the factory, with high powered lights and growing systems in the bathroom, would have cost more than £16,000.

Pham, who pleaded guilty to being concerned in producing a class C drug at a previous hearing was sentenced to two years in prison by Recorder Sean Enright.

http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk

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