The Court of Appeal has quashed a sentence imposed on a man who pleaded guilty to possessing 16.7kg of cocaine and re-sentenced him to seven and a half years in prison, with the final three and a half years suspended.
The judgment, delivered on 27 November 2023 by Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy, followed an application by the Director of Public Prosecutions under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993. The Director argued that the original sentence was unduly lenient. The court agreed that the original headline sentence was too low, quashed it and re-sentenced the respondent.
The respondent had been sentenced on 17 February 2023 to four and a half years, with the final two and a half years suspended. He had pleaded guilty in April 2021 to an offence under section 15A of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977. The effective prison term under that sentence was two years.
The drugs were found in a Volkswagen Caddy driven by the respondent after gardaí followed a Scania truck from Northern Ireland to Ashbourne Business Centre. The cocaine was concealed in a bolted hydraulic press compressor fixed to the vehicle. The judgment put its estimated street value at about €1,187,000. The respondent later returned to a Garda station, made admissions and provided a prepared statement accepting possession.
The Director submitted that the sentencing judge had set too low a headline sentence and given excessive credit for mitigation. The respondent argued that the sentence was appropriate in light of his early guilty plea, cooperation, addiction difficulties and rehabilitation. The Court of Appeal said the quantity and value of the cocaine and the planned, sophisticated concealment made the offending particularly serious. It concluded that the appropriate pre-mitigation sentence was around the presumptive 10-year minimum.
In setting the new sentence, the court also considered the respondent’s guilty plea, personal circumstances, alcohol and substance abuse difficulties, and efforts to address them. It said that, if sentencing him at first instance, it would have imposed seven and a half years and suspended the final 18 months, leaving six years to serve.
The court then took account of further rehabilitation evidence: the respondent was in an open prison, engaged with a community prison links service, attended counselling and was reported to have been substance-free for more than three years. The court said these efforts warranted the unusual step of suspending more of the sentence. It imposed seven and a half years, suspending the final three and a half years on the conditions set by the sentencing court, with the nominated period changed to three and a half years.