Three people have been jailed after £4 million of cannabis was found in an abandoned nightclub.

Merlins in Leysdown Road on the Isle of Sheppey was used to grow more than 2,300 cannabis plants.

Now, "gardeners" Indrit Gaxhenji, 35, Oligert Alija, 20, and Arditi Hoxha, 19, all of no fixed addresses, have received jail sentences after admitting cultivating cannabis.

Maidstone Crown Court heard people living near the two-storey building noticed the smell of cannabis in the area shortly after the nightclub closed in 2018. The building had been left boarded up.

In 2021, the police used a drone to fly over the industrial site which registered "a substantial heat source over Merlins".

Prosecutor Trevor Wright told how officers then raided the building and discovered the cannabis plants, together with 179 transformers.

He said they also discovered the former bar area had been converted into a living area with food and drink, some still in date, and mattresses and beds.

Police then searched a converted roof area, accessible only by a ladder, and found three Albanian nationals hiding.

Rhys Rosser, for Alija and Hoxha, said they had been locked inside the building.

The court heard how Gaxhenji paid a lot of money to be smuggled to the UK only to be told his parents died a few months later.

Judge Oliver Saxby KC said the three had been used as "gardeners" and had been locked inside the building in squalid conditions and had been exploited.

Gaxhenji was given a 21-month jail sentence and Alija and Hoxha was sentenced to prison for 18 months each.

But the judge said that as the trio had been on remand since their arrest they could expect to be released immediately.

Two others, who face similar charges, will go on trial in February 2024.