A takeaway restaurant boss accused of running a £400,000 network of cannabis factories in the region told a jury he was innocent of any wrongdoing.

Hoang Ming Yeung, who has never been in trouble with the law, said he did not know what cannabis was when he was arrested on suspicion of plotting to farm the drug.

Yeung, 36, who lives above his takeaway business in Raynville Road, Bramley, Leeds, was giving evidence at Bradford Crown Court yesterday.

He is allegedly involved in a plot to rake in vast sums of money by turning rented houses – including one in Thorne Lane, Heaton – into sophisticated cannabis factories.

Yeung denies conspiracy to produce the Class B drug between September 2007 and August 2009.

The Crown’s case is that he was involved in four different factories, in Bradford, Leeds and Wakefield.

Yeung, who was assisted by a Chinese interpreter, told the court he did not have fertilisers, lamps and extractor fans in his car boot when he was stopped by the police in Easterley Road, Leeds, in September, 2007.

He said he was told a house in the street had been burgled and he was given permission to take a microwave oven and pans away from it.

Yeung said he was not the tenant of the house in Thorne Lane but helped the Chinese man who rented it with the contract and rental payments.

He said he made 85 phone calls to the Chinese national, who was working for his takeaway business, because the man was very lonely and missed his family in his homeland.

On January 8, 2009, police searched a house in Thorne Lane and seized more than 500 cannabis plants with a potential yield of 20.5 kilograms and a street value of more than £175,000.

Two more cannabis factories were discovered in Wakefield, according to prosecutors.

Yeung was arrested in October 2009 and denied having anything to do with the factories.

The trial continues.