A VIETNAMESE national who worked as a crop sitter for $1.2 million worth of cannabis across two grow houses at Lake Macquarie has been sentenced.
Van Phong Phan was sentenced to an intensive corrections order for two years and four months after police seized more than double the large commercial quantity of cannabis from the properties in July, last year.
The 48-year-old lived in Fairfield and drove to the Cooranbong and Bonnells Bay properties nine times between May 26, 2023 and July 18, 2023, "tending to the garden", "cleaning in and around the plants" and doing some painting work.
Judge Deborah Payne found Phan's involvement in the large-scale cannabis operation was "at the very lowest level".
"The objective seriousness is almost at the bottom of the low-range," she said at Newcastle District Court on Wednesday.
Phan and his girlfriend Thi Hoa Nguyen, 45, were charged after police found 599 cannabis plants inside the two grow houses in July, 2023.
Phan pleaded guilty to using mains electricity without authority and knowingly take part in the cultivation of prohibited plants by enhanced indoor means, which was not less than the large commercial quantity applicable to that plant.
Nguyen was sentenced in May to a backdated term of imprisonment of five months and four days which expired in December, last year.
The court heard Phan had a "good subjective case", with Judge Payne noting he had no prior criminal record and was unlikely to re-offend.
"I accept he has good prospects of rehabilitation," she said.
"I accept he is sorry for his offending behaviour and also that it is unlikely that he will re-offend, indeed I am of the view it is most unlikely that he will re-offend."
Judge Payne took into account the eight months Phan had already spent in custody on remand in sentencing.
