POSH PAD CANNABIS FARMERS PAY A HEAVY PRICE

A VIETNAMESE couple have been jailed for cultivating hundreds of
thousands of pounds worth of cannabis.

Tung Pham, 20, and his girlfriend Thi Nguyen, 32, could be thrown out
of the country after completing their 21-month sentences.

The couple were arrested after police stumbled on a sophisticated
cannabis farm in a residential Liden street last month.

Rob Welling, prosecuting, said officers were called Okebourne Park at
8pm on Saturday, July 22 to reports of a stabbing.

"They could hear people inside but there was no answer at the door,"
he told Swindon Crown Court.

"They took the decision to force entry and they found what they would
describe as a cannabis factory. All four bedrooms were used entirely
for cannabis plants. There was lighting, wiring, chemicals and fans
and what is described as a sophisticated set up to grow cannabis on a
commercial scale.

"In particular, the police discovered that a sophisticated set up to
abstract electricity had also been installed."

He said the device meant that only some power was taken through the
meter while the rest bypassed it so as not to alert the electricity
board to what was going on.

Between 180 and 200 plants were recovered, which had an estimated
street value of about UKP300,000.

He said: "As the police entered the front door the defendants exited
by the rear door and they were arrested."

They told how they had met a man in a market in Lewisham, south
London, who had arranged for them to live in Swindon.

Having paid them a UKP200 lump sum, he bought them food, paid the rent
and told them how to cultivate and harvest the plants. They were also
advised not to go outside. Nguyen said she had been in the country
since 2004 having paid a Vietnamese company $11,000. Pham told police
he had arrived in Britain on the back of a lorry after crossing
several countries.

Mr Welling said it was accepted that they were farm labourers' and not
involved in any other properties raided across the town in recent weeks.

Nguyen and Pham, of no fixed abode, both admitted being concerned in
the cultivation of a class C drug.

Claire Marlow, defending, said: "It is more than likely both will be
deported after completing their sentences. In Mr Pham's case I think
it is inevitable."

She said both had agreed to do the work as they needed to raise cash
to send home to pay people who had got them to Britain.

However, shortly before the raid she said they had wanted to get out,
but had been threatened by the boss.

"They were in a catch 22 as they had no other work and were given this
opportunity and realised it was illegal," she said.

"To a certain extent these are both victims. They are both vulnerable.
Whatever employment they could get in this country it is low paid, if
they can get it."

She said Pham was keen to be deported as his mother had late stage
terminal cancer and had sold her home to pay for his route to Europe.

Judge John McNaught said: "You each played a small but important part
in a very well organised business."

Four Vietnamese immigrants who are charged with the production of
cannabis will reappear at Swindon Magistrates' Court next month.

Two men, 26-year-old Tam Thanh Cao, of Padstow Road, and 45-year-old
Tan Van Truong, of Edgar Row Close, Wroughton, appeared before
magistrates yesterday and were remanded in custody until they come
before the court on Thursday, September 7.

A 36-year-old woman, Nhung Thi Le, of Padstow Road, was also remanded
to appear before magistrates on the same day.

The fourth defendant, 18-year-old Phoung Thu Luu, of Padstow Road, was
also remanded in absence on illness grounds after recently giving birth.

Fightback

EARLIER this month the Adver-backed Swindon Drugs Hotline was launched
in an effort to free our town of the misery caused by the drug trade.

The phone line allows people who are concerned about drug dealing in
their area to phone and leave information anonymously.

And the tip-off system is already paying dividends with police
revealing in yesterday's Adver they are following up a number of leads
in east Swindon.