A CO CLARE businessman has been jailed for six years for possessing drugs.
At Ennis Circuit Court yesterday, Judge Carroll Moran jailed Thomas Lennon (36) of Killestry, Killaloe, after the businessman pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply drugs worth €3.1 million.
The judge told the court that the building contractor got involved in transporting the drugs on July 14th, 2006, in order to discharge a debt to a criminal moneylender.
Lennon employed 25 people but at Christmas 2005, his business was in trouble and he was unable to pay €10,000 to his workers.
Lennon raised the money from criminal elements and they insisted that he pay them back by transferring the drugs, the court was told.
The judge told the court yesterday that the haul was one of the biggest that has ever come before his court.
It consisted of 269 kilos of cannabis resin valued at €1.8 million; 10 kilos of cocaine valued at €691,000; 18 kilos of amphetamines valued at €227,000 and 30,000 ecstasy tablets worth €303,000.
Judge Moran said that Lennon had pleaded guilty, and had no previous convictions, while gardaí accepted that there was no risk at re-offending and that he did not profit from the enterprise.
The judge said that Lennon could not name those criminal elements involved because of well-founded fears, though he did take responsibility for the possession of the drugs.
The judge said that the size of the drugs haul was the aggravating factor in the case.
He said that the charge that Lennon pleaded guilty to allowed for a minimum of 10 years in jail, unless mitigating circumstances allowed the reduction of that sentence and he said that those circumstances existed in his case.
The judge said that Lennon’s counsel, Michael O’Higgins SC, had set out a number of precedents where custodial sentences were not imposed in similar cases.
However, he said: “I can’t go along with that as people coming before the courts who don’t sell large amounts are sent to prison.
“If Mr Lennon had pleaded not guilty, I would have jailed him for 10 years, but I believe that the appropriate sentence in this case is six years.”