Aberdeen cannabis gardener loses appeal against three-year sentence
The High Court of Justiciary refused Trung Dung Le's appeal on 10 July 2019, keeping the three-year sentence imposed at Aberdeen Sheriff Court for producing cannabis and supplying it with others in June and July 2018. He had claimed traffickers forced him to tend the plants.
Hai Van Le, also known as Trung Dung Le, a Vietnamese national born in 1981,
pleaded guilty at Aberdeen Sheriff Court on 21 January 2019 to being concerned
with others in supplying cannabis and to producing cannabis between 19 June
and 3 July 2018.[1][2]He and a co-accused were found during a search of a
property in Aberdeen where a significant growing operation was in progress:
440 juvenile and 587 mature cannabis plants, with a potential combined street
value of between £225,000 and £831,000.[1]
The sheriff sentenced him to three years in prison, discounted from four
years for the guilty plea.[1]Le said a gang that trafficked him into
Britain had forced him to look after cannabis plants for around ten years
without pay, but the Home Office had rejected his trafficking claim and the
sheriff found his position fell short of coercion.[1]On 10 July 2019 Lords
Brodie and Turnbull refused his appeal against the sentence, calling the
three-year term possibly lenient.[1][2]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
Nashaun Joseph, 21, of Huddersfield, was found with a small bag of cannabis when he was arrested on 14 October and was in breach of a 12-month prison sentence suspended for a year. Kirklees magistrates did not activate the sentence, adding a six-month drug rehabilitation requirement and ordering him to pay £197 in fine and costs.
Callum Roper, 22, of Holton Road, Barry, was jailed for 30 months at Cardiff Crown Court after admitting offences involving the supply of cannabis and magic mushrooms. He pleaded guilty to being concerned in the supply of both drugs between 3 December 2025 and 14 September 2026 and had been remanded in custody awaiting sentence.
Bolton Crown Court sentenced seven members of three linked drug gangs that trafficked cocaine and cannabis between Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent and North Wales. Five men received prison sentences of up to eleven and a half years, while two couriers received community orders and two leaders await later sentencing.
Daniel Thompson, 36, was found with 8,223.6 grams of cannabis resin, valued at up to £35,950, when officers searched a house on Moss Side Lane in Rixton in July 2023. Chester Crown Court gave him a nine-month prison sentence suspended for 12 months and 100 hours of unpaid work after he admitted possessing the resin with intent to supply and possessing cocaine.
Sentenced 1Cannabis 8.2236 kgPrison 9 months suspended for 12 months
