CBD oil is legal throughout much of the world
A British man has been jailed in Dubai for 25 years after being found with CBD oil in his car – an incident that resulted in him being “tortured” at the hands of police, reports say.
Football coach Billy Hood, 24, was found guilty of possession, selling and drug trafficking after police officials found four bottles of harmless CBD oil in his car in late January 2021. The oil belonged to a friend who he had given a lift to a few weeks previous – but Hood was not even aware it was still in his car, reports the Mirror.
Hood spoke to a friend in January just after his arrest, where he informed them that he had been beaten for five days inside the Al-Barsha jail in Dubai.
His friend, football agent Alfie Cain, said that police tortured Hood in the hopes of getting a drug confession.
“It’s been bad in Al-Barsha, I’m not going to sugar coat it,” said Cain.
“When they took him to the CID drugs unit they beat him for an entire five days, he told me police officers tasered him, slapped him in the face and all they fed him was bread and little bit of water.
“He was basically tortured and put in a cell with 30 other people for five days.”
Cain was informed that Hood signed the confession written in Arabic after police told him the torture would stop upon his admittance.
“Billy said they told him he could go home if he signed the paper, that’s why he gave in and signed that piece of paper in Arabic – he had no idea what he signing but he just wanted to make it stop.”
CBD oil is available throughout the UK for uses that range from holistic medicines to anxiety control. Though CBD is completely legal here, the UAE’s strict drug laws prohibit the use of anything containing even trace amounts of illegal substances like THC.
His family is understandably distraught, with his mother saying “It broke us completely” upon seeing the staggering 25-year sentence.
“I can’t talk about it without tears forming in my eyes. It’s too hard to take in,” his mother Breda, 55, told the Sun.
His brother has set up a GoFundMe to aid with legal fees, of which the total currently sits at just over £15,000.
A spokesman from the Foreign Commonwealth Office said: “We are giving consular support to a British man who has been imprisoned in the UAE.”
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