A 72-year-old South African man who said that he imported cannabis worth nearly €50,000 to pay for a hip operation for his wife has been given a four-year sentence by Judge Desmond Hogan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Kenneth Fordred was arrested after customs officers found 12 packages of cannabis herb in his baggage a day after he arrived at Dublin Airport from Paris following a flight from Johannesburg. His bag had been mislaid in Paris and he spent the night in a hotel waiting for it. Customs officers became suspicious of the bag when it arrived and detained Fordred after he came to pick it up.
Fordred told gardaí that he was in great financial difficulty because his wife was ill and he needed money to pay for an expensive hip operation. He also had other medical expenses to meet.
He said that he had been approached twice by a man to make a trip to Ireland, and had refused, but he had agreed on the third occasion for a promised payment of 10,000 rand (€1,000).
Fordred, from Marine Drive, Durban, pleaded guilty to the unlawful possession of cannabis for sale or supply on August 4th, 2002.
Det-Garda Jane Heany told Mr Paul Greene, prosecuting, that the street value of the drug had been put at €48,275. She said that Fordred had co-operated fully with the gardaí.
Judge Hogan backdated the sentence to last August and suspended two years of it because of a number of mitigating factors he said he had to take into consideration, including Fordred's age, his wife's illness and the fact that he had been duped by the person behind the operation.
Mr Patrick Gageby SC, for Fordred, said that his client had committed the offence out of desperation.
While in custody, he had written an article for a newspaper in South Africa warning others against going down the same road.
Judge Hogan ordered Fordred not to return to Ireland during a four-year period from the commencement of the suspended final two years of the sentence.