Jail for man caught preparing heroin worth €286,000 for sale

A man who was caught preparing heroin worth €286,000 for street sale as a favour to a friend he met at football has been jailed for three years.

Garda Shona Moran accepted that Robert Reynolds (35) could be described as "easily led" and said the father-of-one told her he had been helping Edward Maher (31) mix the drugs for street sale.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that Maher had been under Garda surveillance and this led the investigation to Reynolds' address, where the two men were found mixing heroin in a garden shed.

Reynolds, of Orchard Lawns, Ballyfermot, pleaded guilty to possessing just over 2kg of heroin worth €286,020 at his home on December 19th, 2016.

Maher, of Croftwood Gardens, Ballyfermot, was jailed for three and a half years last November for the same offence.

Garda Moran told Maurice Coffey BL, prosecuting, that she and colleagues entered Reynolds’ home and found the two men with large quantities of brown powder and mixing agents in the back shed. Gardaí also discovered a weighing scales, blender and gloves on the scene.

Reynolds told officers that he was not a heroin addict, but smoked €50 worth of cannabis a month and had been asked to get involved with the drug preparation as a favour.

Garda Moran agreed with Pauline Walley SC, defending, that her client co-operated fully and that he “doesn’t possess great insight and appears to be easily led”.

The garda said she was satisfied Reynolds, who has six previous minor road traffic convictions, had not owned the drugs.

Ms Walley submitted to Judge Martin Nolan that her client was remorseful, did not have a good education and was at the very bottom of the operation. She asked the judge to take into consideration Reynolds' very early guilty plea.

Judge Nolan accepted that Reynolds was “not the most street wise” but said he knew what he had been doing with the drugs.