Ngoc Nguyen had left his wife and children at home in Vietnam in a bid to earn a better life for them by working in England, Peterborough Crown Court heard on Friday.

He travelled to France, where he worked as a nail technician, before making his way to the UK in the back of a lorry.

However, he failed to get any work when he arrived, until he was offered a role watering plants in a home in Warbon Avenue, New England, Peterborough.

In return for looking after the lucrative harvest, he was told he would get paid £1,000 cash every month, plus free food and board.

But just days after arriving in the city, police raided the home and arrested Nguyen.

He pleaded guilty to being concerned in the production of cannabis.

Police recovered 279 plants and 267 seedlings in five rooms when they carried out the search of the home on March 5.

The drugs would have had a potential harvest worth £190,000, the court heard.

Equipment, worth £9,000, was also recovered, and will now be used in other schemes – compost will be used in school garden projects, while lights will be sold to raise police funds.

The raid was the 59th factory discovered in the city.

Mitigating, Nicola Devas said Nguyen had given up work as a farmer in Vietnam.

She said: "He had been in England for approximately four weeks before he was brought to this particular address in Peterborough. At that stage, he had really nowhere to live.

"He was told he would be required to stay in the house and look after the plants and would be given sufficient food for a period of a month."

Jailing him for 21 months, Judge Nicholas Coleman said: "It's a reflection of the profits that are to be made that people are prepared to do this sort of activity, which is illegal.

"I know you're not the principal, but, as a gardener, you're a significant person."

He also recommended Nguyen be deported at the end of his sentence.

Since October, city police working on Operation Tooting have disrupted 28 cannabis factories with an average value of £100,000.

It followed a previous operation at the end of 2006, which uncovered 34 factories in the city.

The factories are usually set up in rented homes, often with illegal immigrants being used as "gardeners" to look after the hugely profitable crop.

Factories cost about £20,000 to set up, but can yield up to £500,000 each year.