The Court of Appeal has dismissed Daniel Higgins’s appeal against a seven-year sentence for conspiring to possess cannabis for sale or supply. The court found no error in principle and said the sentence, with its final three years suspended, was within the available and appropriate range.
Higgins pleaded guilty on 22 June 2017. He was sentenced on 22 November that year. The appeal focused on the difference between his sentence and that of co-accused Mr Cronin, who also received seven years but had the final five years suspended.
The offences occurred on 15 September 2016. Gardaí searching a home on Mallow Road in Cork found Mr Cronin there and recovered cannabis from a shed roof and nearby woodland. The judgment records 3.4kg valued at €68,680 on the shed roof and a separate bag containing just under a kilogramme, valued at €18,950.
The court said Higgins arrived at the house, saw Gardaí and went into the wooded area looking for the bag. He was intercepted close to it. The judgment also records that he had sent messages about collecting the cannabis and had contacted a supplier about the search. Higgins accepted that he expected to make about €3,000 from selling the cannabis he was seeking. Both men cooperated with Gardaí.
The court contrasted their roles. Mr Cronin rented a room at the house, received and arranged drug consignments, and was described in evidence as subordinate to the principal, Mr Fawzi. The judgment said Higgins was in business on his own account and had a personal stake in the drugs beyond a subordinate role. It also noted factors in Higgins’s favour, including that no presumptive mandatory minimum applied and that the amount directly linked to him was substantially less than in Mr Cronin’s case.
The Court of Appeal considered whether the difference between the sentences was justified and whether Higgins’s effective four-year sentence was erroneous in principle. It concluded that the commercial nature of the enterprise put the sentence within the appropriate range and dismissed the appeal.