DEADLY THREAT POSED BY WIRED GROW OP

Live wires wrapped around the front door knob and lock.

Ditto for the main floor windows and patio door.

Knives at the ready, next to a mattress on a bedroom floor.

Hundreds of marijuana plants growing inside, with a video security
system -- and more -- to keep outsiders out.

A London court heard a litany of horrors about an illegal marijuana
grow operation stashed inside a bungalow that police raided last June.

Heavily booby trapped to fend off intruders, the house at 259
Commissioners Rd. W. was so fortified, experts were taken aback by
its defences.

"This was nothing short of a trap," said federal drug prosecutor Bill
Buchner, who called it "meticulously thought out."

London Hydro line supervisor Tony Casciano, called in to assess the
wiring, said the situation was "very dangerous."

Touching doors or windows would have led to "a pretty good jolt,"
causing injury and possibly death, he said.

London police Const. Darrin Brown, formerly of the force's drug
squad, said he'd never seen anything like it.

"This is my first experience with a house wired up or booby trapped,"
he testified.

Revelations about the grow operation emerged as a man hired to guard
the house pleaded guilty to a raft of charges, including a rare count
of permitting a trap device with electricity.

Ngoc Tuan Vu, 25, a Vietnamese immigrant, also pleased guilty to
marijuana production and possession for the purpose of trafficking
and theft of electricity.

Vu told Superior Court Justice Lynda Templeton he took the job a
friend offered because he needed money for a brother studying in France.

"I know it was my fault. I am responsible for what I did," Vu said in
the prisoner's box through a translator.

He is to be sentenced today.

A pre-sentence report showed when Vu took the job, he believed there
was little risk of being jailed if caught.

Conditional sentences, or those served outside jail, have been handed
down for illegal pot grow operations as big or larger than the London one.

Buchner asked Templeton to consider a sentence of 2 1/2 to three years.

Defence lawyer Jack Hardy said Vu's 267 days spent in pre-plea
custody is the equivalent of an almost 18-month sentence and is enough.

Neither Buchner nor Hardy could find a case with similar facts
involving a booby trap.

Brown told Templeton the police officers went into the residence just
before 7 a.m. after getting a search warrant.

Neighbours told them everyone entered the house through an east door
off the car port.

On the door was a sign that read: "Please Use Front Door."

The east door was the only entrance not electrified. But it was
rigged to close a kitchen door when it was opened.

Vu, confronted by police in bullet-proof vests, helmets and guns
drawn, quickly surrendered, Brown said.

A total of 434 pot plants were found in the bedroom and basement,
plus a large amount of grow equipment.

A security camera, part of a system to watch the front of the house,
was also found.

There was also an electrical bypass in place -- getting around the
normal power meter -- to operate the place.

Blue wires on the windows and front door were jammed into live sockets.

Brown listed the dangers of grow ops in residential areas -- noxious
fumes, mould and fungus and risk of fire from crude electrical bypasses.

Casciano couldn't say how much power would have been flowing through the wires.

Hardy disagreed with Buchner's estimates the plants had a street
value of about $135,000, or $300,000 if sold in grams.

Vu, Hardy said, came to Canada on a student visa in 2000 and married
in 2002. He has a step-daughter and is a landed immigrant.

He said his client, with no prior criminal record, wants to be
reunited with his wife and live in the London area, where he says he
can get a job.

Hardy said Vu wasn't involved in the operation long and didn't set the traps.

Vu said in a pre-sentence report he was "sorry and scared to be in
jail." He has limited English and Hardy argued "the experience in
jail is more severe because of the language barrier."