A gardener was caught tending the wrong sort of plants when police raided a £50,000 cannabis factory.

Ardit Ademaj, 24, answered the door when police executed a drugs warrant at a house in Braithwait Close, Bowthorpe.

Norwich Crown Court heard officers found a “commercial cannabis factory” at the property on February 27 this year.

Police found at least 130 cannabis plants in various stages of growth at the address, worth around £50,000.

The court was told that Ademaj, an Albanian national, was a gardener who came to Norwich “on a lorry”.

Ademaj, of no fixed address, appeared at court via videolink on Tuesday (June 9) to be sentenced having admitted cultivation of cannabis.

Andrew Oliver, defending Ademaj, who spoke through an interpreter, said he had arrived in a lorry having paid money to come to the UK to do a “normal job”.

But Mr Oliver said he was taken to the address and “told to look after the plants”, something he had been doing so for about a month.

Mr Oliver said Ademaj, who had no previous convictions, should be given credit for his plea.

Sentencing him to seven months in prison, Judge Stephen Holt said Ademaj had been found at a commercial cannabis factory with plants with a street value of about £50,000.

He said: “The only sentence I can pass is one of immediate custody.”

Judge Holt said the lowest sentence he could pass was seven months imprisonment.

As previously reported, following Ademaj’s arrest Norwich Police publicised the action on social media.

Officers tweeted: “An excellent result with the discovery of over 200 cannabis plants being grown. One suspect arrested and is currently in custody #NWSNT #PC820”.”