A British football coach jailed for 25 years in Dubai for possession of CBD liquid vape is being “tortured” in prison, a friend of his has claimed.
Billy Hood, 24, was found guilty of possession, sale and drug trafficking after police found cannabis vape juice in his car on Jan. 31.
In the UK, CBD oil is legal as it only contains traces (approximately 0.02%) of the psychoactive cannabinoid THC.
But the UAE – where Mr Hood, from west London, had moved in 2020 to work as a children’s football coach – has a zero-tolerance approach to all cannabinoids and psychoactive drugs.
Sentences for drug trafficking offenses can be as severe as the death penalty, and possession of the least amount of illegal drugs can carry at least four years in prison, according to the UK Foreign Office website.
Hood told the Dubai Detainee campaign group that police had appeared unexpectedly and demanded that he search his home and car. He also took a voluntary drug test which was negative.
He claimed the oil was left to him by a friend who had visited England two weeks earlier.
Dubai police are believed to have highlighted him after monitoring WhatsApp messages and searching for drug-related words, such as CBD, the abbreviation for cannabinol.
A week before Mr. Hood was arrested, the friend who owned the liquid vape sent him a message telling him he had forgotten it in his car.
Officers took Mr Hood to a police station and kept him in a cell for 14 days “without any hygiene products,” the BBC reported.
This month he was convicted by a drug trafficking court with intent to supply that month, for which he received a sentence of 25 years in prison.
He now reportedly told one of his friends that he was being tortured in Al-Barsha Prison in Dubai.
Alfie Cain, a football agent, claimed that Hood had been beaten for five days while Dubai CID agents were trying to force him to confess to drug offenses.
Hood had only signed the “confession” of drug trafficking, written in Arabic, because he was exhausted and in pain, and because officers said they would stop hitting him if he did.
Cain was quoted by The Sun as saying, “It’s been bad for Al-Barsha, I’m not going to cover it.
“When they took him to the CID drug unit they beat him for five whole days, he told me the police officers did chores on him, they hit him in the face and all they fed him was bread and little water.He was basically tortured and locked in a cell with 30 more people for five days.
“Billy said he was told he could come home if he signed the paper, so he gave in and signed that piece of paper in Arabic. He had no idea what he was signing, but he just wanted it to stop.”
Radha Stirling, founder and general manager of the pressure group detained in Dubai, which is helping the Hood family, said forced and forced confessions are common in Dubai.
She described her treatment and sentence as “extreme” for “having an oil that can’t even make you go up.”
Stirling added that possession of CBD oil would only carry a maximum sentence of a couple of years, but that Hood’s sentence was 25 years due to traffic and sale charges.
Hood’s family set up a GoFundMe page to pay for legal expenses, which has so far raised almost £ 15,000.
On the fundraising page, it says, “He’ll be released in ten days or maybe ten years. At the moment we just don’t know.”
Mr Hood’s family is calling on the UK and UAE governments to intervene in the case.
His mother, Breda Guckion, told the BBC: “I’ve been hiding, crying and crying when I imagine what our sweet boy is going through. It’s the worst stress I’ve ever experienced and I feel helpless.”
