LAW lords have rejected claims a Vietnamese man was pressured into tending a Bolton cannabis factory because his wife and child had been kidnapped.

Police raided a property in Royal Court Drive, in November 2015 and found a cannabis growing set-up, with more than 220 plants, capable of producing five to 11 kilos of the drug.

Detectives arrested a man who can only be named as BTT, for legal reasons, and he was later charged with production offences, the Appeal Court heard.

BTT was later convicted at Bolton Crown Court and sentenced to a three-year jail term.

But in an application asking for leave to appeal his conviction, his lawyers claimed their client had only been a part of the operation because his wife and child had been snatched by a Vietnamese gang.

BTT had insisted he was forced to lie at trial by the gang and had effectively been acting under duress.

His trial was told the defendant had arrived in the UK with others, having been found in the back of a lorry on the M2. BTT was given immigration bail but ended up in Bolton.

He said he had been offered a job watering and tending plants so he could send money back to his family in Vietnam. But he denied knowing the plants were cannabis.

The judge at his trial had also, while reviewing evidence, effectively dismissed any concerns that the defendant had been trafficked, the appeal court heard.

Refusing him leave to appeal, Mr Justice Flaux, sitting with Mrs Justice Cheema Grubb and Mr Justice Murray, said BTT had not persuaded the court his case was 'exceptional' and said his conviction could be regarded as safe.

"His evidence that it was not until he was in prison that he learnt that his wife and child had been kidnapped is completely inconsistent with the evidence in the second witness statement that he learnt of the kidnap when he arrived at the cannabis factory," said the judge.