Man in court on drugs charge after £600,000 cannabis farm discovered in Hartlepool

The case was heard at Teesside Crown Court.

Hundreds of cannabis plants were growing over three floors of the house when police raided it last month, Teesside Crown Court was told.

A Vietnamese man and woman have been charged with producing the Class B drug between January 3 and April 3 at the house in Thornton Street, Hartlepool.

Prosecutor Harry Hadfield said that the man Co Hoang, 42, claimed that he had been trafficked into the UK and his case was still being investigated by the Home Office.

The decision its expected before the end of this month, he told the judge in the case Howard Crowson.

Hoang said through a woman interpreter over a videolink from Durham Jail at a Skype conference hearing because of the Copvid-19 pandemic: “I did not do did it.

”I was forced into it.”

The woman Lan Nguyen, 37, who appeared over a videolink from Low Newton Prison did not make a similar claim.

The judge said that because of the national backlog of trials, reported this week as reaching 37,000, the earliest possible date for a trial could be October 7.

He adjourned the case until June 8 pending the Home Office’s decision on Hoang with both defendants remaining in custody and appearing again over videolinks.

Teesside Crown Court hearings are being held over Sjype with only the judge and the clerk attending the court building and the barristers and defendants appearing over videolinks.

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