The Court of Criminal Appeal has upheld the sentence imposed on David O’Neill after Gardaí found about €10,000 worth of cocaine at his family home in Clondalkin, Dublin.
Gardaí searched the house on March 13, 2008 and recovered 135 grams of cocaine. The drugs were divided into weighed bags and stored in a press under the stairs. Officers also found digital weighing scales and a mobile-phone SIM card. O’Neill promptly admitted ownership of the cocaine but declined to provide the PIN needed to activate his phone.
He later pleaded guilty in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. In December 2010, Judge McCartan imposed five years' imprisonment with the final year suspended for one year.
At sentencing, O’Neill argued that the drugs were largely connected to his own use and that he supplied friends only on a limited basis. His case was that money from selling a horse had funded the drugs and that he sometimes bartered them for items such as horse equipment.
The prosecution took a different view. During questioning by the sentencing judge, Garda Padraig Shanley said he believed O’Neill had been selling drugs for possibly several years.
The appeal court held that this questioning crossed an important legal line. A person cannot be sentenced for criminal activity of which he has not been charged or convicted, and disputed allegations of other offending require proper proof.
However, the court found the error did not materially affect the sentence. The quantity and packaging of the cocaine, the scales, the concealed SIM card and O’Neill's lack of visible income supported the inference that he intended to trade in the drugs actually seized. His explanation about funding the purchase through a horse sale was unsupported by documentation and was rejected as credible evidence.
The court therefore dismissed the sentence appeal and left the original five-year term, with its final year suspended, in place.