A 49-year-old Shropshire man who was involved in the supply of up to £50,000 worth of cannabis has been spared an immediate prison sentence because of a serious medical condition.

Junea Joseph needed to attend Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital for renal dialysis three times a week and was on a NHS waiting list for a kidney transplant, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard yesterday.

At the court, Judge Robin Onions told Joseph that due to “compelling medical evidence” he could suspend the jail sentence he was required to impose for the drugs offence.

Joseph, of Holyhead Road, Albrighton, near Shifnal, was given a total of 52 weeks in jail suspended for two years and was also placed on supervision for a year and ordered to pay £200 costs.

At an earlier hearing Joseph had admitted being concerned in the supply of cannabis with three other Shropshire men in July last year.

He also pleaded guilty to producing cannabis plants and two charges of possession of stun guns for which he was given concurrent suspended jail sentences.

In addition Joseph was placed on a curfew for six months between 7pm and 7am each day. Judge Onions said the defendant would be electronically tagged, but the curfew would be relaxed on the three evenings that Joseph must attend hospital for his dialysis treatment.

The court heard Joseph and the three other men were caught during a West Mercia police operation when they were seen unloading 10 kilos of cannabis, with a street value of up to £50,000, from a van outside a Telford address.

Mrs Janet Pitt-Lewis, prosecuting, said when police visited Joseph’s home they found 11 cannabis plants growing and two stun guns.

In a basis-of-plea read to the court Joseph said he was not an organiser of the drug supply and had initially borrowed an Audi car from one of the other defendants to travel to Barton Mills, near Newmarket, Suffolk.

He had given the other two men a lift and was suspicious and realised that they were involved in criminal activity, the court was told.

The two men returned independently, but he was with them when the drugs were later unloaded in Telford, the court was told.

Mr Mark Sharman, for Joseph, said it was out of character and that his client had previously led an industrious life and had a successful business that had fallen victim of the recession.

By Arthur Mills