Cannabis ‘can boil people’s minds’

DEFENCE barrister Isobel Thomas said Sohail Khan had been out drinking all night and ‘can’t remember anything’ that happened.

She told the court: “The defendant’s explanation is that he was heavily intoxicated at the time.

“He does know exactly how wrong his actions were.

“He totally stepped out of line and is remorseful for placing [the] family in this situation which he knows must have been terrifying and frightening for them.

“He recognises that alcohol played a part of course in this incident. To his credit he is taking steps to resolve these issues.

“He said he hasn’t drunk [alcohol] since the commission of this offence and doesn’t intend to drink again in the future.

“He is ashamed of how he behaved on that afternoon and doesn’t want to behave like that again.”

Judge Simon Medland QC invited Khan’s father to tell the court why he shouldn’t send him immediately to jail.

Mr Khan told him: “He is feeling sorry for what he has done. It’s a matter of hanging around with the wrong people.

“I don’t know what they think but drink and drugs, they think it’s the in thing these days. I don’t agree with it at all.

“I keep telling him every day to keep away from people who are doing wrong and don’t drink and smoke drugs.”

The court heard how in Khan’s pre-sentence report he ‘candidly’ told the probation service that he ‘hadn’t the slightest intention of giving up’ his cannabis use.

However the judge told Khan that it ‘boils people’s minds’.

Sentencing, he said: “Cannabis has a particularly pernicious affect on people’s minds, especially if it’s taken over a long period of time.

“Some people may view it as being not particularly serious, but time after time after time I see defendants before me who have got cannabis use related psychological and psychiatric problems.

“It boils people’s minds and makes them behave in this extremely irrational, unpredictable and very frightening way.

“The trouble is that you were on the street with a meat cleaver over a period of about 90 minutes. Fortunately nobody was injured but it’s one of those situations where if things had been marginally different then who knows what the injuries may have been. It’s a serious order matter.”