A haulier found in possession of cannabis and cocaine with a combined value of over €15 million has been jailed for 10 years by Judge Joseph Matthews at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Colm McDonald (38), Racecourse Common, Lusk, Co Dublin, pleaded guilty to possession of 978.8 kg of cannabis (worth €12.42 million) and 30.08 kg of cocaine (worth €3.1 million) in April 2003.
Det Garda Omurchu Murphy told prosecuting counsel Fergal Foley that the cannabis, packed in 36 bales, was found in a hidden compartment under the floor of a lorry McDonald was driving. The cocaine was found in a suitcase hidden in his garage.
Det Garda Murphy said that in addition to being in haulage, McDonald also worked at repossessing vehicles. The lorry in which the drugs were found was a vehicle he had repossessed for a business based in Scotland.
Gardaí uncovered the drugs during a surveillance operation. Officers followed the truck on the main Dublin to Belfast road until it arrived at Bentley's, a container yard in Treen Hill, Lusk.
Evidence of recent welding was detected in the container part of the truck and gardaí found a secret compartment containing the cannabis. The cocaine, which gardaí had observed being removed in a suitcase from the lorry, was later found in a shed in McDonald's house.
The truck had ostensibly been used for transporting peat briquettes. McDonagh had driven it on April 14th, 2003, from Rosslare to France where the briquettes had been dropped off. The truck then went on to Spain and returned to Rosslare on April 19th, 2003, with the drugs.
Det Garda Murphy said McDonald's co-accused, Julian Gilloughley (28), originally from Cloghran, Co Dublin but with an address at Henrietta Street, Dublin, was employed by McDonald at the time and had travelled with him when the drugs were collected. Judge Desmond Hogan jailed him for five years last July after evidence was heard that Gilloughley only "became involved because of a real and present fear of violence being perpetrated against himself and his family".
Citing exceptional circumstances, Judge Hogan did not impose the mandatory minimum 10-year sentence and also suspended the last two years of the five-year sentence.
The Director of Public Prosecutions, however, later appealed the leniency of the sentence at the Court of Criminal Appeal which increased Gilloughley's sentence to seven years.
John Edwards SC, for McDonald, told Judge Matthews that his client was "a troubled businessman who resorted to a quick fix" under duress from severe financial difficulties.
Mr Edwards asked the judge to refrain from imposing the mandatory minimum 10-year sentence on account of his early plea of guilty entered in October 2004, on the date he was due to go on trial. He also asked the judge to consider McDonald's previous "lily-white character".
Judge Matthews said he could find no evidence that McDonald had been of material evidence to gardaí nor had he any evidence he had been vulnerable when he committed the offence.
Had McDonald been found guilty of the charges by a jury of his peers, Judge Matthews said, he would have been sentenced to 16 years rather than 10.
He backdated the sentence to April 7th, 2005, on account of two months which McDonagh had spent in remand after he was first arrested.