By Cam Lucadou-Wells
An unemployed dad under mortgage stress sought to draw income from a 34-plant cannabis crop at his Springvale South home.
Van Chien Nguyen’s 23-kilogram crop as well as six kilos of dried cannabis, lights, transformers, fans and electrical bypass were discovered by police on 2 March 2020.
The crop was just shy of the 25-kilogram threshold for commercial trafficking.
The 54-year-old Nguyen pleaded guilty at the Victorian County Court to cultivating a narcotic plant, drug possession and the theft of $10,856.88 of electricity during the growing period.
Nguyen had worked continuously as a welder or machine operator until a workplace injury in 2016.
He then started to drink heavily and use cannabis to cope with the resultant shoulder pain.
Nguyen struggled on his return to work and was made redundant in 2019.
A psychologist submitted that Nguyen’s escalating cannabis and alcohol abuse was fuelled by financial stress, shoulder pain and lack of work.
He had no prior drug-related offending.
The Vietnamese-born refugee arrived in Australia on a humanitarian visa in 1987.
He’d been jailed in Vietnam during his first attempt to escape his homeland.
On his next attempt, he was housed in a refugee camp in Malaysia where he saw a friend shot dead.
In sentencing on 9 June, Judge Michael Cahill said Nguyen’s “serious” offending aimed to “make money” as well as to grow himself a “painkiller”.
Since his bail 10 months ago, Nguyen had “substantially advanced” his rehabilitation, Judge Cahill said.
He’d obeyed strict bail conditions, gained work at a fish market and remained drug-free.
Nguyen was sentenced to 151 days’ jail – which had already been served in remand – with a two-year community correction order.
The CCO included supervision and 100 hours’ of unpaid work and drug treatment.
A compensation order for the stolen electricity was “not pursued”.
