A Leeds man who supplied illegal cannabis products to help people suffering from illness has been sentenced to four years in prison after the Court of Appeal overturned his original suspended sentence.
Joel Cunningham, 40, was initially handed an 18-month suspended prison sentence in June after being convicted of seven offences including possession with intent to supply magic mushrooms and conspiring to supply THC, after police uncovered his operation trading in cannabis-based oils, creams and vapes.
However, Solicitor General Ellie Reeves referred the case to the Court of Appeal, arguing the sentence was “unduly lenient”. On Tuesday, three judges agreed and imposed a four-year prison term, ordering Cunningham to surrender to Leeds police station by 4pm on Wednesday.
At the original trial in June, Judge Neil Clark described it as a “highly unusual” case, noting that the motivation was to help people rather than make a profit. He admitted there had been no evidence of harm caused to customers and accepted that Cunningham “genuinely believed the products work”.
Cunningham originally received an 18-month jail sentence, suspended for 12 months, and was ordered to carry out 160 hours of unpaid work.
When police raided Cunningham’s house in October 2021, they found multiple cannabis-based products, £7,748 in cash, luxury watches, a CS spray canister and about 1.5 kilograms of magic mushrooms.
At the Court of Appeal, the Solicitor General argued that the magic mushrooms conviction should have been treated as the “lead offence” when Cunningham was originally sentenced. “It is not accepted that any intention to supply Class A drugs for medicinal rather than recreational purposes would serve to decrease the sentence significantly,” she said.
While the judges found that while there was no evidence that Cunningham had supplied magic mushrooms previously, “the jury were clearly satisfied that he was planning to do so in the future”.
The case had attracted significant public support, with a petition gaining over 4,400 signatures from people who said Cunningham had helped them with chronic pain, life-threatening illnesses and severe epilepsy.
Cannabis-based medicines have been legal for prescription in the UK since November 2018, though only a handful of prescriptions have been issued via the NHS. Approximately 60-80,000 people are prescribed through private clinics, while it is estimated that around 1.8 million people in the UK use cannabis for medical purposes outside the legally prescribed framework.
