A MAN promised work as a decorator has been locked up for 18 months for taking a gardening job instead – at a £72,500 cannabis factory.

Xhemal Terziu, an illegal immigrant from Albania, was caught hiding in the attic at the industrial scale farm in Keighley after travelling to West Yorkshire from London.

Terziu, 20, of no fixed address, was tending the 154-plant grow at a disused takeaway in Devonshire Street, Bradford Crown Court heard today.

He was found concealed under a plastic wall lining when police acting on information broke into the premises through a side door at 7.30am on October 31.

Prosecutor Graham O’Sullivan said the former shop with a flat above it had been converted into a commercially sized cannabis farm. There were three floors of plants in six rooms that included 67 mature plants and follow-on grow of 87 smaller plants.

The court heard that Terziu was living in squalid accommodation at the address while he acted as a gardener.

Mr O’Sullivan said the professional set-up was capable of producing a yield of 8.47 kilos of cannabis with a wholesale value of more than £40,000 and a potential street value of £72,500.

Terziu had no previous convictions in the United Kingdom or his homeland, the court was told.

The judge, Recorder Taryn Turner, made an order to confiscate all the plants and paraphernalia seized from the property.

Terziu’s solicitor advocate, Julian White, said his client came to the UK a year ago hoping to find work as a decorator. He was told he would be working in that trade at the address in Keighley but when he got there from London, he was ordered to feed and water the cannabis plants.

Mr White said he had been there for a week when the police raided it. He did not set up the factory or expect any share of the profits. He was acting as a gardener in return for accommodation and food.

He was a single man whose family and girlfriend were all in Albania. He had come to Britain illegally as an economic migrant.

Recorder Turner sentenced Terziu to 18 months detention in a young offender institution.

He was assisted by an Albanian interpreter and appeared before the court on a video link to HMP Doncaster where he had been held since his arrest.

Recorder Turner said he had been caught hiding at a professional cannabis farm capable of producing the drug on a commercial scale.