Mum weeps after medical cannabis for daughter's epilepsy is seized at airport

A mother who returned to the UK with illegal medical cannabis for her severely epileptic daughter wept after it was confiscated at the airport.

Emma Appleby flew back to Britain from the Netherlands on Saturday morning with her partner Lee after buying a supply of medical cannabis oils for nine-year-old Teagan.

But when they landed at Southend Airport in Essex, the three-month supply costing £4,600 was seized.

Teagan, from Aylesham near Dover, has a rare chromosomal disorder called Isodicentric 15 as well as Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, which means she has up to 300 seizures a day.

The family flew to the Netherlands on Thursday, obtained the medicine prescribed by a paediatric neurologist at the Erasmus Hospital in Rotterdam and collected it from a pharmacy.

They paid for the supplies with their own money and some they had obtained through fundraising.

Ms Appleby was comforted at the airport by fellow campaigner Hannah Deacon, who last year became the first to be allowed to bring THC oil through a UK airport legally for her seven-year-old son Alfie Dingley, who has epilepsy.

Last November the law in the UK was changed to make access to medical cannabis legal.

In December, Carly Barton became the first person in the UK thought to have been prescribed cannabis for medicinal use.

But parents have been struggling to secure prescriptions partly due to medics here being reluctant to prescribe medical cannabis.

Guidance by NHS England says it expects that cannabis-based products for medicinal use should "only be prescribed for indications where there is clear published evidence of benefit" and in "patients where there is a clinical need which cannot be met by a licensed medicine and where established treatment options have been exhausted".

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said last month that his "heart goes out" to parents experiencing anguish over difficulties in obtaining medicinal cannabis.

He said he is trying to "unblock" some of the challenges in the system but, ultimately, "these things need to be clinician-led".

Ms Appleby, who has met Mr Hancock, said she had no choice but to seek medical cannabis outside the UK.

She said: "I'm really gutted. They just took everything.

"They knew apparently, they had been notified from social media.

"I hadn't said where we were coming in but obviously everyone knew, all you've got to do is put it on the passport.

"They asked me at border control how long we were away for.

"I thought 'they're asking questions as someone's notified them'.

"Then they asked if I had anything to declare, and there were loads of them waiting so I knew if I said no I was going to get myself in deeper so I just said yes."

She said border staff were told not to destroy the medicine and she hopes to apply for an import licence to get it back.

Tory MP Sir Mike Penning, co-chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Medical Cannabis Under Prescription, said: "This is a shattering blow for Emma and Teagan.

"It's a damning indictment of the way this policy has been implemented.

"I will be urging all my parliamentary colleagues to get this medicine returned to Emma soonest and demanding that the Department for Health, the NHS and everyone involved gets together urgently so families don't have to go through the stress and trauma of travelling abroad to get a medicine that is now legal here."

Peter Carroll, director of the campaign group End Our Pain, said: "This is a medicine that's legal in the UK. The law was changed for a reason.

"To put these families who have already got this stress and worry of caring for very sick children through all the trauma - Emma has been passed from pillar to post, she's tried to do the right thing at every stage of this process.

"I call on everybody from Matt Hancock, the leaders of the NHS, the leaders of all the medical professions, I know you must all be caring people but the system that you have put in place is resulting in this kind of trauma for families like Emma's.

"It's totally wrong. It's time now for compassion to dictate what happens next and we'll be unstinting in our fight to get this medicine back for Emma and, just as importantly, to make sure this doesn't happen for any other family."

The Home Office had been approached for an import licence on compassionate grounds to help Teagan ahead of the journey but this had been refused, Mr Carroll said.

Ms Appleby's MP, Conservative Charlie Elphicke, has been pushing the Home Office to grant a licence for cannabis oil treatment for Teagan.

A government spokesman said: "The decision to prescribe cannabis-based products for medicinal use is a clinical decision for specialist hospital doctors, made with patients and their families, taking into account clinical guidance.

"It is unlawful to import unlicensed cannabis-based products for medicinal use to the UK without the prescription of a specialist doctor and a Home Office importation licence.

"Border Force has a duty to enforce the law and stop the unlawful import of controlled substances into the UK."