Dealer left country as ‘life was under threat’

A heroin dealer who served half of his 10-year sentence and had the other half suspended on condition that he would comply with the probation service directions left the country because he was under threat, it was claimed yesterday.

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin warned the accused, John Paul Carey, that if he did not comply with the directions of the probation service, the other five years of the original sentence would be imposed.

“If he does not co-operate with the probation service, if he is not able to put this threat — real or imagined — to the side, I will jail him,” the judge warned Carey at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.