The Court of Appeal has reduced the prison sentences of two men found working as “gardeners” in a sophisticated cannabis-growing operation at Swinford Business Park, Co Mayo.
Xiao Fei Weng and Shi Dong He had pleaded guilty at Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court to possession of cannabis for sale or supply and cultivation of cannabis. Each received concurrent six-year sentences in May 2013.
Gardaí raided Unit 16 at Swinford Business Park on 24 October 2012. Inside the warehouse they found a purpose-built grow house containing 1,498 cannabis plants, along with lighting, air filtration, insulation and other equipment. The plants were valued at €1,198,400. A further 417 grammes of cannabis herb was valued at €8,342.
Both men were present and arrested. Gardaí accepted that neither owned the operation and that both were low-level workers whose roles were properly described as gardeners. They had been living at the premises, had been told they could not leave and were supplied with food each day.
Neither man had previous convictions and both indicated an intention to plead guilty at the earliest opportunity. The sentencing judge nevertheless selected an 11-year starting point before reducing it to six years for mitigation.
The Court of Appeal found that starting point too high. It noted in particular that prosecutors had not charged the men under section 15A, which would have carried a presumptive ten-year minimum sentence despite the approximately €1.2 million value of the drugs.
The appeal court found no legitimate criticism of the amount of mitigation allowed. The error lay instead in the original assessment of the gravity of the offending before mitigation.
The six-year sentences were quashed and replaced with four years' imprisonment for each appellant. Earlier proposals that their sentences might be suspended to facilitate deportation had fallen away, and by the appeal hearing both men had indicated that they no longer intended voluntarily to cooperate with deportation orders.