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A CROWN Court jury has cleared a man who was accused of growing and supplying cannabis to relieve his wife's acute Multiple Sclerosis symptoms. The jury, in Warrington last Friday, accepted taxi driver Alan Blythe's defence of "duress of circumstance" by a majority decision. In doing so they ignored the judge's suggestion that Mr Blythe had failed to prove duress of circumstances for the charge of cultivation. The court was told that 10 cannabis plants, pots of cannabis bush heads and a variety of growing equipment was found during a 7.30am raid on the Blythe's home in Runcorn last July. In evidence Mr Blythe described how his wife could hardly work and attacks of extreme dizziness. "After these attacks she would be absolutely suicidal," said Mr Blythe.

After the case he said he would go to prison rather than see his wife suffer more of the agony which had made her suicidal.