Brendan Mangan has cannabis sentence cut on appeal
This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.
The Court of Appeal suspended the final 15 months of Brendan Mangan’s six-and-a-half-year sentence on 8 October 2015. Mr Justice George Birmingham sat with Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan and Mr Justice Alan Mahon.
The offence was possession of €2.3 million worth of cannabis for sale or supply at two locations in Dublin on 27 March 2014. Mangan had pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. Judge Martin Nolan sentenced him to six-and-a-half years’ imprisonment on 23 April 2015. The proceedings were reported on 8 October 2015.
Mr Justice George Birmingham said gardaí intercepted Mangan in a car on the date of the offence, and €500,000 worth of cannabis was found. A follow-up search of a dwelling at Tonlegee Road in Coolock, where Mangan was the tenant, yielded €1.8 million worth of the drug.
The judge said Mangan had taken the tenancy about three months earlier after being approached when he needed somewhere to live. Those who approached him offered to pay the rent in return for packages coming to the house. During Garda interviews, Mangan expressed fear of those involved, the judge said.
Mr Justice George Birmingham said the tenancy paperwork being in Mangan’s name indicated a lack of guile or sophistication. The sentencing judge accepted that Mangan was at one of the lowest rungs in the ladder and that “perfect mitigation” was present. He had no relevant previous convictions.
His barrister, Michael Bowman SC, did not dispute the appropriateness of the six-and-a-half-year sentence but argued that Mangan should not serve it all. Citing the accepted description of Mangan as “gullible” and “easily led”, he submitted that the sentence needed mechanisms to prevent further unlawful conduct.
The Court of Appeal agreed that a limited suspension would provide an incentive to remain law-abiding. Mangan was required to enter his own €100 bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour throughout the suspended period.