Home Office ‘has signed my son’s death warrant’

A MOTHER has pleaded with the authorities to return the cannabis oil she uses to treat her son’s severe epilepsy after it was confiscated at Heathrow Airport.

Charlotte Caldwell made the trip to Toronto and back with 12-year-old Billy to get a six-month supply to treat up to 100 seizures a day, but it was taken away by border officials yesterday.

Ms Caldwell, from Castlederg in Co Tyrone, Northern Ireland, accused Nick Hurd, the Home Office minister, with whom she later had a meeting, of having “likely signed my son’s death warrant”. “It’s Billy’s anti-epileptic medication that Nick Hurd has taken away, it’s not some sort of joint full of recreational cannabis,” she said. “I will just go back to Canada and get more.”

The Home Office last night said it was “sympathetic to the difficult and rare” situation they faced, but defended the seizure.