A takeaway restaurant boss accused of running a £400,000 network of cannabis factories in the region has returned to China for the funeral of his father, after giving evidence in his trial.

Hoang Ming Yeung, 36, who has denied conspiracy to produce cannabis, is alleged to have been involved in a plot to rake in vast sums of money by turning rented houses into sophisticated cannabis factories, including a property in Thorne Lane, Heaton, Bradford.

Yeung, who lives above his takeaway business in Raynville Road, Bramley, Leeds, had told a jury at Bradford Crown Court he was innocent of any wrong-doing and claimed he did not know what cannabis was when he was arrested on suspicion of plotting to farm the drug.

Yesterday the jury of seven women and five men were told by Judge Robert Bartfield it had come to light that the defendant’s father in China had died and he had informed his solicitor he would be going to China for his father’s funeral and any other appropriate Buddhist rituals.

Judge Bartfield said: “He has not said when he will be back. What little information I have about this is the Buddhist mourning period could be at least two weeks. Whether he’ll take another week or another month, we don’t know.”

The judge added: “I have decided the case will continue. The defendant had all but completed his evidence and we know what his case is.”

He told the jury: “It appears there is evidence that suggests that the death of his father and his decision to go could be a genuine one. Of course, your instinct may be to say he has done a runner.

“It doesn’t effect his guilt or innocence one jot, one way or the other.”

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 told the court he did not have fertilisers, lamps and extractor fans in his car boot when he was stopped by the police in Easterly Road, Leeds, in September, 2007.

He claimed 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.

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

The jury is expected to consider its verdict today.