Dylan Farrell receives suspended sentence for cocaine possession

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

Dylan Farrell received a fully suspended three-year sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. Judge Elma Sheahan required him to engage with the Probation Service for two years and follow its directions.

Farrell pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine for sale or supply at Keeper Road, Drimnagh. The offence took place on 18 December 2018. The proceedings were reported on 11 January 2021.

Judge Sheahan had first heard evidence in July 2019 and placed Farrell on a six-month probation bond to give him an opportunity to prove he could rehabilitate. She later said a Probation Services report found he had made significant progress in redirecting his life and was considered at low risk of reoffending. The judge accepted that he had engaged with counselling, secured an apprenticeship, was drug free and had not come to garda attention.

At the previous sentence hearing in July 2019, Garda Damien Quirke told prosecuting counsel Diana Stuart that gardaí saw a man get into a stopped taxi. A search of the taxi found 11 bars of cocaine, with a total value of €95,600.

Farrell told gardaí he had been asked to drop something off for €300, which he wanted to buy a jacket for Christmas. He said he did not know what he was delivering, although he thought it might have been drugs. Quirke agreed with defence counsel Seamus Clarke that Farrell had told gardaí he was trying to pay off a €1,000 drug debt and had no concept of the cocaine’s true value.