A cannabis farmer caught in Oxford last month has been arrested three times in the past four years by police forces across England, a court heard.
Viet Nguyen, 45, was first arrested by officers from Hertfordshire Constabulary in 2019, when it was found he was in the country illegally, then last June was arrested at a cannabis factory in Bristol by officers from Avon and Somerset Police.
Finally, on May 9 this year, officers from Thames Valley Police arrested him when they raided a property in Littlemore Road, Cowley.
They also found scores of cannabis plants and Nguyen was charged with growing 160 of the lanky, leafed plants.
Appearing before Oxford Crown Court on Friday (June 9), Nguyen, of Littlemore Road, Oxford, pleaded guilty on a written basis to a single count of producing a class B drug.
Prosecutor Matthew Knight asked the judge for an adjournment so the Crown Prosecution Service could consider Nguyen’s basis of plea.
He told the court that police had sent away the defendant’s two mobile phones – apparently both of which were pin-locked – to be cracked into and downloaded by digital forensics specialists. The process could take between six and eight weeks.
Judge Maria Lamb remanded Nguyen into custody to be sentenced on July 24.
She told the defendant, who was standing in the dock wearing a grey prison-issue tracksuit and following the proceedings through a Vietnamese interpreter: “It is in your interests in the sense that these proceedings can go ahead more rapidly if you provide the pin numbers for your two phones.”
Alice Aubrey-Fletcher appeared for Nguyen.
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