AN ILLEGAL immigrant who broke both his ankles trying to escape from police has been jailed for growing cannabis.

Anh Nguyen hobbled for a mile across a golf course while being tracked by a helicopter.

He had jumped from the rear window of a house in Meriden Close, Bromley.

Nguyen was eventually caught by a police dog, who bit him three times as he tried to escape through the undergrowth.

Officers found 300 cannabis plants in the house where he was living.

But the 21-year-old told Croydon Crown Court he did not know what they were.

Nguyen, who gave evidence through a Vietnamese interpreter, said when he first arrived in Britain in the back of a lorry, he was given a dish-washing job in a restaurant.

He said: "Then they took me to the house in Meriden Close.

"I don't know who offered me this job.

"The plants were already there.

"I thought they were Chinese herbal medicine plants.

"I was told my job was to water the plants and I was paid £100 a week."

Nguyen said he had been living there for three months when the house was raided on November 9 last year.

He pleaded not guilty but was convicted of cultivating drugs and was jailed for a year at Croydon Crown Court on March 29.

Recorder Neil Saunders recommended he be deported once he finishes the sentence.