A CANNABIS farmer in Dumbarton who was brought to the UK by people traffickers has spoken of his “absolute terror” at being sent back to his own country.

Le Van Thang fears that the criminals who smuggled him into the UK in 2015 would take revenge on him and his family if the Home Office deports him to Vietnam at the end of his sentence, a court has heard.

Thang, 32, was caught cultivating cannabis plants worth almost half a million pounds when police raided an industrial unit at the Vale of Leven Industrial Estate in October 2019.

Official estimates put the value of the drug haul at between £264,000 and £436,000.

The High Court in Livingston was told Thang had been in custody since his arrest – and had already served the equivalent of a prison sentence of more than four and a half years.

David Nicolson, defending, said Thang acknowledged the “significant value” of the plants but stressed that he had played a limited role for just one month.

He said the guilty plea had been delayed to allow his legal team to make inquiries into whether the fact he was a trafficked person would provide him with a defence.

He said: “In England that is a defence and the Crown would take a different approach to the matter. Discussions were had but in the end a plea was tendered.”

Mr Nicolson added: “He’ll be deported, he understands that. But the fear on his face when that was said to him spoke volumes about the changing nature of his trafficking.

“He fears when he gets back that he'll suffer at the hands of those who brought him here. 

“The interpreter was shocked when we had that discussion, and it was she who conveyed what he was saying about his absolute terror at being returned to his country.”

He said being remanded in custody for such a long time had been “a very isolating experience” for Thang because only a limited number of fellow Vietnamese speakers were held in prison.

Thang currently an inmate at Low Moss prison in Bishopbriggs, earlier pleaded guilty to producing and being concerned in the supplying of a controlled drug in Dumbarton between September 22 and October 22, 2019.

His not guilty plea to bypassing an electricity meter supplying the premises was accepted by the Crown.

Passing sentence, Judge Michael O’Grady told Thang through an interpreter that he would normally have imposed a period of four and a half years in prison on such a serious case.

He discounted Thang’s sentence to three years and nine months in prison and backdated it to run from October 24, 2019, when he was first remanded on the charges.