Influencer’s son took £2,000 of drugs into festival inside Pot Noodle

The teenage son of an influencer has been spared jail for attempting to smuggle thousands of pounds worth of drugs into a festival inside a Pot Noodle.

Luka Corbishley, 19, was caught carrying the £2,000 load after a police dog sniffed the drugs out as he tried to enter the popular Creamfields festival in Daresbury, Cheshire, in August 2024.

Officers found a mixture of drugs stashed away in a pot of the nation’s instant noodle delicacy, including 15.7g of MDMA, 29 tablets of MDMA and a quantity of Ecstasy pills.

Corbishley – who had turned 18 six weeks before – also had messages on his phone claiming he had ‘different flavours’ for the weekend, although he insisted it referred to his use of cannabis.

The judge Recorder Lawrence McDonald sentenced Corbishley to two years in prison, suspended for 24 months after he pleaded guilty to possessing MDMA and ecstasy with the intent to supply – and dubbed the act ‘incredibly stupid’.

Corbishley, who is a part-time DJ and apprentice at a data management company, also pleaded guilty to the unlawful possession of cannabis for his own personal use.

His mother Ruth Oxley – a model, author, businesswoman and blogger known as ‘Roo’ – wept as her son was sentenced at Chester Crown Court last week.

Mere days before his arrest Ms Oxley, 43, celebrated her son on Facebook over a ‘rave’ he organised at a pub near their home at Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire – and wrote: ‘The apple does not fall far from the tree with this one.’

Corbishley’s ‘naivety and immaturity’ was emphasised by his lawyers during the hearing, who provided 13 character references from teachers, his employer and friends.

The teenager had faced up to seven years in prison under sentencing guidelines.

He was also handed a 9pm to 6am curfew for a year and was told to complete 300 hours of unpaid work and 15 days of rehabilitation activity.

Corbishley was delegated from his group of friends to smuggle the drugs into the event after they thought he – who had a small number of bags – would be the ‘least likely’ to be stopped for a bag search.

Miss Zara Kayani, prosecuting, said: ‘He was stopped after being positively indicated for having drugs in his possession by a drug dog.

‘A PC carried out a search of his bags and found a pot noodle which looked as if the top had been tampered with.

‘It contained a parcel of snap bags wrapped in cling film’.

Ms Kayani added Corbishley’s phone was also taken, which contained messages and posts about several ‘new flavours’ he had.

The group of friends chipped in £25 each to buy drugs off someone, the court heard, and were planning on buying 20 bags of MDMA as well as ketamine and pills.

Miss Kayani continued: ‘It was decided by his friends he would take in the drugs. It was less likely he would be caught because of the size of his bags.

‘He refused to provide details of who had packaged the drugs. The plan was to distribute them when he got into the event. 

‘He denied that he had taken any payment of any form for taking the drugs in. He said he would only be getting the drugs he had paid for.’

Defence counsel Oliver King told the court Corbishley expressed ‘genuine worry and remorse’ and is ‘concerned about his future’ – adding this ‘perhaps demonstrated how much he has grown up since these offences’.

He continued: ‘At the time he had just turned 18 and the fact males in their mid to late teens lack maturity and fail to fully understand their actions, applies to him. He had absolutely no appreciation of how serious this was’.

Mr King described Corbishley as ‘polite, honest, hard-working and trustworthy. He has got a fantastic education record and a business studies diploma’.

He added the teenager had ‘ploughed on with his apprenticeship’ during the proceeding and is ‘on track to pass with distinction’, adding ‘many would have crumbled under the pressure and given up’.

Mr King continued: ‘If he passes with distinction he has got aspirations to do a university degree. So much lies ahead of him. There is no suggestion here that this young man represents a danger to the public.’

The judge Recorder Lawrence McDonald told a visibly shaking Corbishley: ‘Every year people come through this court after dealing drugs at Creamfields – and the vast majority go to prison.

‘At the festival they get a leaflet with a ticket telling them not to do it, they will walk past warnings, amnesty bins and do so knowing that drug officers are searching for it specifically.

‘You may think having drugs in a Pot Noodle is in some way clever or designed to evade detection but it is unbelievably stupid.

‘Every year we see people who look just like you who think they have come up with some way of hiding drugs and getting them in and yet they are caught.

‘The story is friends decided you would take them in as you were least likely to get caught. Well get new friends, get better friends. 

This was complete lunacy. If that was true, they are not good friends. 

‘They are not people you should be hanging around with.’

The judge added: ‘In contrast to most of the drug dealers we see, it seems you have got a chance to make something of yourself – but that could easily have been thrown away by what you did on that day.

‘This was not drug dealing for money – it was foolish, naive and immature, taking the rap for a group of so-called friends who decided you would be the one who carried the drugs into this festival for everybody to use.

‘If you finish this apprenticeship, get a good job and make something with your life that will be far better for you and the community than you going to prison for a couple of years where you will learn more about criminal behaviour from less naive criminals.

‘By the skin of your teeth I have decided that I will suspend this sentence – but please, I urge you to take the chance you have been given. Complete the apprenticeship, get a job and do not get mixed up with drugs again.’

Creamfields, which was started in 1998, attracts up to 80,000 festival goers for the four-day festival.

More than 300 artists perform, which has included the likes of Chase and Status, Fatboy Slim and David Guetta.