TWO Vietnamese men have been locked up following the discovery of an industrial-scale cannabis growing operation at units in Bradford earlier this year.

A judge at the city’s crown court heard that more than 1,800 cannabis plants had been found growing in various units at the site on Mount Street and the potential yield of the drugs could have had a wholesale value of just over £350,000.

Prosecutor Felicity Hemlin said it was an incredibly large operation and the cannabis was likely to have been sold on a wholesale basis.

Judge Colin Burn said those playing a leading or significant role in the cannabis production would have seen it as “an industrial facility”.

The two defendants Nghia Tran, 32, and Puong Nguyen, 19, were both arrested in separate units on the site when police officers moved in on April 11 this year.

The court heard that Tran had served jail sentences before for his involvement in cannabis growing and had even come back into the country after being deported.

Nguyen, had no previous convictions, and the court was told he had no money and nowhere to live at the time.

The teenager had come into the country illegally when he was 15 and he had stayed at the unit out of fear.

His barrister Lauren Smith said he had now signed voluntary deportation papers and wanted to return to his partner and two young daughters in Vietnam.

Both defendants had been remanded in custody since their arrests and Judge Burn imposed custodial sentences which will mean they could both be deported imminently.

The judge jailed Tran for 21 months after he pleaded guilty to being concerned in the production of cannabis partway through his trial.

Nguyen was sentenced to 19 months in a young offenders' institution after he admitted the same offence at an earlier stage.

The judge said he accepted that both defendants had become involved in the offending due to “a degree of pressure” and their own circumstances.

“Like so many people who are not entitled to remain in the country and have come to the country in circumstances which are possibly unlawful there was a very limited range of employment available to you,” the judge told the pair.

“Of course this employment was very much illegal.

“There is no doubt that the amounts that were being grown would be described as industrial in scale.

The court heard that Nguyen had been acting as “a gardener” and the judge sentenced both men on the basis that they had been involved in “a lesser role”.