The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by Samina Sajjad against a seven-year prison sentence for importing 13.69 kilograms of diamorphine, finding that the sentencing judge made no error of principle.
The judgment, delivered ex tempore on 17 September 2020, concerned a sentence imposed by the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 16 May 2019. Sajjad had pleaded guilty to an offence under section 15B(1) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977, as amended. Her sentence was backdated to 16 November 2018, the date she entered custody.
The appeal court heard that customs officers detained Sajjad at Dublin Airport on 16 November 2018 after she arrived from Pakistan via Doha with her eight-year-old niece. Officers found 13.69 kilograms of diamorphine concealed in a suitcase. The judgment put its estimated value at approximately €1,916,600. A man who met her near the airport car park was found with €2,000 in cash. At the time of the sentencing hearing, no charges had been brought against him.
Sajjad told customs officers that a stranger had given her the suitcase to pass on. The judgment records that she repeated an account the appeal court described as manifestly implausible during later interviews. She had no previous convictions and had entered a guilty plea early. The sentencing court also considered her health, family circumstances, previous work and character evidence.
The sentencing judge set a 10-year headline sentence, then reduced it to seven years after considering mitigation. The appeal court said the 25% reduction appropriately reflected the guilty plea, previous good character and personal circumstances, including her health difficulties and status as a foreign national. It found she was not entitled to maximum credit for the plea, given that she had been caught with the drugs and had offered an account the court considered unbelievable.
The appeal judges described the offence as premeditated and commercially motivated, involving a substantial quantity of heroin. They also treated the child’s presence as an aggravating feature, finding that bringing her niece could deflect customs attention and risk distress to the child.
The court considered sentencing comparisons cited by both sides but said they were old and did not provide a sufficiently representative guide. It found the sentence consistent with the trend in the Court of Appeal’s 2019 guideline judgment in *Sarsfield*, while noting that the 10-year headline sentence might have been higher without necessarily being overturned on appeal.
The court concluded that Sajjad had not established an error of principle or shown that the sentence was unduly severe. It dismissed the appeal. The decision addressed the sentence only; it made no determination about the man who met her at the airport.