The judges at the Court of Appeal acted wisely and rightly in declining to reduce the six-year prison sentence imposed at Leeds Crown Court in February on drug-crazed driver David Withnall, who caused an accident in which a Shipley mother-of-three died and her husband was seriously injured.

In fact, after reading again the facts of the case as presented to the court, many people might consider that those six years should have had something added to them. After all, Withnall's appalling driving, using his knees to steer his car at speeds of up to 120mph on the busy M62, has left Mr Gordon Legg with a lifelong sentence of grief for the loss of his wife, Susan.

Withnall had become so paranoid and delusional after years of smoking cannabis that he believed he was being followed by a one-eyed crow. Yet the judges agreed with the trial judge that he was culpable and knew what he was doing. They also heard that while he claimed to have stopped smoking cannabis two weeks before the accident, when he was arrested he had a 16.5g bag of the drug stuffed down his jeans and traces of it in his bloodstream.

By upholding the sentence, the judges have reinforced the message that driving while under the influence of drugs or drink is a deeply serious matter for which there should be no excuses. Withnall's case also should serve as a warning to those tempted to start using cannabis that it is nowhere near as harmless as some of its advocates would have us believe.