13 May 2019  •  News  •  2 min read

‘I risk criminal record to help my child’

Anthony Clarry has had to get used to breaking the law.

Once a month he smuggles two cannabis-based medicines into the UK for his five-year-old daughter Indie-Rose, who has a rare form of severe epilepsy.

Speaking minutes after clearing customs at Stansted Airport, he told the BBC: “Every time I come back from the Netherlands I am really anxious that they might stop me and then I risk a criminal record, and also having Indie’s medicine taken away which would potentially put her life at risk.”

Indie-Rose’s mother, Tannine Montgomery, has also made the trip. She said: “We should not have to spend £1,500 a month on these medicines, but be able to pick it up from a local pharmacy.”

At home in Clare, Suffolk, they are reunited with Indie-Rose, who has Dravet syndrome, a rare and hard to treat form of epilepsy.

They say the cannabis oils have dramatically reduced the frequency, duration and severity of their daughter’s seizures.

Tannine said: “Since she has been on the cannabis oils, she has not been hospitalised with a seizure. Not only that, but she is more alert, happier, a different child, and it’s made her life worth living.”

Read more on the BBC News website : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48283242