Brendan Heaney jailed for drug possession

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Brendan Heaney was jailed for 16 months at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court after storing drugs at his home in Kimmage, Dublin. The proceedings were reported on 1 February 2019.

Heaney pleaded guilty to possession of drugs for sale or supply. The offence concerned drugs at his home on 4 April 2017. He also admitted keeping or supplying pharmaceutical drugs in breach of the Medicinal Products Act.

Gardaí found drugs valued at more than €153,000, including heroin and pharmaceutical tablets. The heroin included 395g with an estimated street value of €55,246.

Heaney told gardaí that his daughter, a recovering crack cocaine addict, owed €26,000 to a Finglas drugs gang and that people had threatened to kill her. He said she went to him for help and he agreed to collect and store boxes for the gang. Michael Bowman SC, defending, said Heaney never profited and took part only to stop his daughter being killed.

Judge Martin Nolan accepted that Heaney was forced into the crime because of his daughter’s predicament. He noted an old five-year UK sentence for drug possession and accepted that Heaney had since been law-abiding. The judge said he could depart from the mandatory minimum sentence of ten years and imposed 16 months in prison.

At a hearing before Christmas, Judge Nolan had agreed to defer sentencing until early the following year because of Heaney’s family circumstances.