When police forced their way into a Ramsgate house, they found a cannabis factory comprising hundreds of plants.

Electricity meters had been by-passed, and a partition wall dividing the Church Road property into flats, knocked through, and officers believed there were up to 1,000 plants although this figure was disputed in court.

They found a 46-year-old Vietnamese man hiding in a toilet and at Canterbury Crown Court on Friday, Bang-Ngoc Tran was jailed for 30 months, less the 98 days already served, having admitted being involved in the production of cannabis in May.

Judge Nigel van der Bijl said prison was the only possible sentence, but he accepted Tran’s role was that of a gardener, putting him at the lower end of the scale, but a warning had to go out to others.

Denzil Pugh, prosecuting, said there was evidence most of the plants had already been cropped and Tran later said his role was to harvest the cannabis, for which he was to be paid £1,000.

He was hard up when he was approached and although he knew he was doing something illegal, he didn’t know what the plants were.

Tran has been in the UK since 1992 when he arrived as a refugee, and had now been granted citizenship.

Nicholas Jones, for Tran, said he fled Vietnam at 19 and spent 12 years in a Hong Kong refugee camp. He was married with four children but now seperated from his wife. Until his involvement with the cannabis factory, he led a blameless life.

He needed to get money to help with treatment for his father who had fallen ill and had since died.

Mr Jones said Tran thought the number of plants ran into hundreds rather than 1,000 and many of the flowering heads had already been harvested when police arrived.