Client Guilty of Supplying Cannabis Avoids Prison

Case study summary

Our client pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply cannabis. He was a vulnerable young man who had suffered multiple medical traumas and turned to smoking, and selling, cannabis. We were able to secure the lowest possible sentence and ensure he avoided prison.

Case study

Our client was arrested in January 2022 for possession of cannabis with intent to supply. He explained that he had bought a large quantity of the drug to share with friends and, in return, they would pay him cash. We explained to our client that, even though he was only selling cannabis to his friends, this is still a criminal offence and there was a real risk of him being sent to prison.

Knowing that an immediate prison sentence was a real possibility, we worked closely with our client to obtain as much information as we could from him to persuade the court that prison was not the right outcome in this case. We became aware that our client had been diagnosed with cancer as a teenager which meant that he struggled at school and socially. When he was 18, he then had suffered a serous workplace injury to his hand which resulted in him being unable to work. Whilst unemployed, he had turned to smoking cannabis and sold it to his friends. We obtained evidence of our client's medical history and character references from his close family members and friends who explained the impact which the traumatic life events had had on him and confirmed that the offending was completely out of character.

Our client entered a guilty plea, and we instructed a trusted and experienced barrister to represent him at his sentence hearing. The barrister put forward all of the helpful material which we had gathered and, while we accepted that the offending was serious enough to warrant a prison sentence, they were able to use this material to persuade the judge to suspend the sentence. This meant that our client avoided prison and could work on turning his life around with the support of his family. He was extremely pleased with this result.