Pubdate: Mon, 13 Dec 2010
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Copyright: 2010 Associated Newspapers Ltd
Contact:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/108

WHAT A GRASS

'Cannabis club' student avoids prison after his own mother calls
the police

A student who ran a 'cannabis club' from his university halls was
spared jail today - thanks to his mother's 'courageous' decision to
shop him to police.

Ex-public schoolboy Alexander Bull, 20, kept detailed notes of his
drug deals - totalling thousands of pounds - on his laptops using
spreadsheets, a court heard.

He was arrested in April after his mother Ruth found his stash and
called the police but avoided jail today thanks to her actions.

'This case is unusual in that your mother had the desperate parental
dilemma of how she bring you out of your particular addiction. It was
exemplary and courageous,' said Judge Peter Clarke.

'I can quite understand that there may be ill feeling towards your
parents but by her doing this it has kept you out of prison. Normally
these offences would see a period of years in prison.

'Your mother had to wrestle with this decision and with enormous
difficulty. You have a lot to thank your mother for.'

Bull, who was said to be 'severely addicted' to cannabis and was often
'so high he did not realise how obvious it was to his mother' that he
was constantly taking drugs, pleaded guilty to one count of possession
of class A drugs, one of possession of class B, and one count of
possession of class B with intent to supply.

Bull was found with 12mg of cocaine, 1.64g of cannabis resin and 26.02
grammes of skunk.

The Oxford Brooke student was handed a 12-month detention sentence
today, suspended for a year, and was also ordered him to do 150 hours
community service.

Bull's blonde mother wept silently as the judge handed down the
sentence.

Thomas Nicholas-Pratt, for Bull, earlier said his client is a 'naive
young man' who got 'caught up in the cannabis tide gushing round
Oxford Brookes'.

He went on: 'Mr Bull's mother contacted police after she became
concerned about his behaviour. She did what she thought was the best
for her son and my client realises that.

'Mr Bull did not corrupt anyone else, he was already a user before
going to Oxford Brookes and so were the people he sold drugs to.'

Passing sentence, the judge told the student: 'You have had the good
sense to acknowledge your responsibility for your actions, as acting
as a hub of a small wheel of soft drug supply at university.

'It was a subculture that you were an enthusiastic member of. Such an
enthusiastic member that your mother has written to the court telling
how you were so high you did not realise how obvious it was to her
that you were consistently taking drugs.'

Judge Clarke said that Bull did not need probation because he was now
free of his drug hell.

The judge added: 'You are making considerable efforts to rid yourself
of the low level of extreme addiction to class B drugs.'

Bull, of Regent's Park, north London, declined to comment after court.
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