The Court of Criminal Appeal has refused Andrew Dermody leave to appeal a seven-year prison sentence for possessing cocaine for supply, finding no basis to reduce the sentence further.
Dermody had pleaded guilty to the offence under section 15A of the Misuse of Drugs Act. The sentence was imposed at Carlow Circuit Criminal Court by Judge O’Shea. In its judgment delivered on 21 December 2006, the appeal court said the statutory regime required a minimum ten-year sentence unless exceptional and specific circumstances made that unjust. The trial judge had reduced that minimum by three years.
The cocaine was found in Dermody’s bedroom during a Garda search of the home he shared with his mother, while he was absent. The judgment records that he returned after his mother called him, admitted the drugs were his and said he had bought them in Dublin for €18,000. The indictment stated the drug’s market value was at least €12,697.38. A weighing scale was also found with the drugs.
Dermody told gardaí he planned to sell the cocaine in small quantities around Carlow. He declined to identify his supplier, saying he feared reprisals. The judgment says gardaí agreed he was in poor financial circumstances and had no indication of significant funds. It also records that he eventually claimed to have paid about €4,600 and owed the balance. The Director of Public Prosecutions submitted that he had paid or incurred debt for the full €18,000.
For Dermody, counsel argued that his early and consistent guilty plea and his admissions had assisted the investigation and should justify a greater reduction. Counsel acknowledged he had not named his supplier. The Director opposed a further reduction, but did not seek to have the sentence increased and accepted that a guilty plea carried some mitigating weight, including in section 15A cases.
The appeal court noted the Director’s position and said the evidence had not been argued to deprive the plea of all mitigating value. It nevertheless concluded that the three-year reduction was the largest justified in the circumstances and found no error of principle in declining to reduce the sentence further. The court dismissed the application for leave to appeal; it did not increase or otherwise alter the seven-year sentence.