NEIGHBOURS have told of their shock after police seized more than a hundred cannabis plants during a raid at a home in their quiet residential street.

Officers discovered the illegal growing operation - worth thousands of pounds - after entering the terraced house in Wansford Road, Woodford Green, in January last year, following a surveillance operation.

Two people, Pauline Than Nguyen, 36, and Quang Van Vu, 60, were arrested during the bust and charged with cultivating cannabis and illegally abstracting electricity.

Mr Van Vu, of no fixed address, denied the charges but was found guilty on both counts at Snaresbrook Crown Court last Wednesday (March 10) and sentenced to three years in prison for growing cannabis and six months for stealing electricity.

Ms Nguyen, who lived at the property, pleaded guilty to the charges in 2009 and was sentenced to two years in prison and deportation upon her release.

The cannabis factory is one of several found by police in Woodford Green during the past few years, with properties in St Albans Crescent and Broomhill Walk - where nearly 300 plants were seized in March 2008 - also used by illegal growers.

Andrew Dimitriou, 31, of Wansford Road, knew something was up after seeing a police patrol car parked opposite the house just days before the raid.

He said: "I didn't think much about it at the time but(The police) were obviously keeping the place under surveillance.

"The next thing you know they raided the place and there was a lorry outside being loaded up with loads of cannabis plants.

"It took me back to think that this was going on just a couple of doors down, but you read about (cannabis growers) using houses out in the suburbs quite alot now don't you."

Fellow Wansford Road resident Geoff Marvell, 77, told the Guardian that he remembered smelling a strange aroma in the area shortly before the bust.

He said: "The bloke loading up the lorry with the plants said he couldn't believe I hadn't noticed the smell of cannabis coming from the house.

"When I thought about it I had noticed a weird smell in the backgarden, but I thought it was paint or something.

"They had apparently been using the upstairs rooms and the attic to grow the stuff."

Another neighbour, who did not want to be named, said: "I remember seeing them (Nguyen and Van Vu) coming and going.

"I heard the landlord had to spend quite alot of money sorting out the electrics in the place because of the damage (Nguyen and Van Vu) had done."

The plants seized during the raid, which was led by Roding Ward Safer Neighbourhoods Team (SNT), had an estimated street value of £12,000.