Cannabis producers caught in Clifton have been jailed and will eventually be deported, a court heard. The group of three were all acting as gardeners to a crop in in Gardendale Avenue, Clifton.
The plants were found on March 14 after a tip-off from a member of the public about possible criminal activity at the address. Those arrested: Hieu-Van Duong, aged 37, of no fixed abode, 36-year-old Luc Van Nguyen, of no fixed abode, and Van Duc Ungiyen, aged 43, of Gardendale Avenue, Clifton, all admitted producing cannabis at court.
Ungiyen was jailed for 14 months in prison, and his co-accused received 12 months each, of which they will serve half, before deportation.
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Judge Stuart Rafferty KC told the three men at Nottingham Crown Court on Thursday (May 11): "No doubt each of you came to this country thinking that your lives would be better and no doubt each of you paid a large sum of money to get here via one route or another.
"Inevitably coming to this country illegally meant that you could not work in a proper way. And, inevitably, those who had brought you have wanted the money for doing so and so inevitably you begin to work as gardeners in a cannabis grow".
He said in recent years growing cannabis in this country has been by Lithuanians. "It would be unfortunate to think that the Vietnamese would be seeking to regain the ground that had been lost.
"Many people think the streets of this country are paved with gold"
"Because, if that is so, more and more people from your country will find themselves in precisely the same position as you and equally depressing from your perspective is this, that you had not thought of yet, once you get back to Vietnam and you still have not paid your debt, what is going to happen to you?
"Somebody is going to put you back in a trailer and smuggle you back into the country all over again. So far from improving your lives, you have made them many, many times worse.
"Even though you were gardeners, you knew, you must have known, you were involved in an illegal enterprise". The judge warned if they could avoid coming back, to take that step.
"Many people think the streets of this country are paved with gold," he said. "Nothing could be further from the truth."
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