Cork professional heroin dealer gets nine years

A PROFESSIONAL heroin dealer in Cork city was jailed for nine years yesterday.

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin said of Declan Harris, aged 50, yesterday that “his commitment to drug-dealing was total”.

Harris denied dealing heroin and crack cocaine at a flat on Clarendon Place in Cork city on August 29, 2007, and he was put on trial at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

A jury of 10 men and two women returned unanimous guilty verdicts against Harris yesterday.

Detective Sergeant Jason Lynch testified that, as a result of confidential intelligence, a search was conducted at the flat where Harris was living.

22 deals of heroin and 23 deals of crack cocaine were found during the search. While the total value of the drugs seized was a little over e1,300 Harris had serious convictions for similar offences.

As recently as last February he was given a seven-year sentence when the sentencing judge described Harris as entirely motivated by profit.

Detective Sergeant Lynch said in that case the divisional unit of the drugs squad received confidential information that a Cork man was driving back from Dublin with a quantity of heroin. Acting on this information they observed Harris driving from Mitchelstown and they followed it to Cork city where they saw it pulling in to the car park of Mayfield shopping centre.

The gardaí then intercepted Harris and brought him and the car to Mayfield Garda Station to conduct a search.

They found the illegal drugs concealed by the petrol cap of the car. The stash consisted of 54 grammes of diamorphine, better known as heroin, with a street value of over e10,000. The date of that offence was September 1, 2007, and was one of the most significant quantities of heroin seized in Cork at that time.