Officers see man slipping prisoner drugs in court

Prison officers escorting a man from Cork District Court observed another man slipping drugs to the prisoner in the courthouse.

Eoin O’Sullivan, aged 27, of 21 Bridevalley View, Fairhill, Cork, was searched at the scene and found to have in his possession a deal of diamorphine, better known as heroin, and 15 antipsychotic prescription tablets known as D-10s.

Inspector Ronan Kenneally said the incident at the courthouse at Anglesea St was detected by two prison officers on escort duty with O’Sullivan on February 17.

“They were escorting him from holding cells when another male attempted to pass drugs to Mr O’Sullivan,” Inspector Kenneally said yesterday. “The prison officers removed the packet of drugs from Mr O’Sullivan.”

Gardaí later questioned O’Sullivan on the matter and he refused to make any comment on it.

The inspector said O’Sullivan had 126 previous convictions, including a six-month jail sentence back in July 2011 for dealing drugs. The inspector said the accused man’s accomplice was dealt with previously.

O’Sullivan pleaded guilty yesterday to the offence of having the drugs for his own use.

Eddie Burke, solicitor, said: “The young man would have been a hopeless heroin addict at the time, a vulnerable young man who spent the better part of his life in custody.”

Judge Leo Malone imposed a seven-month sentence on him for possession of the drugs because, he said, “it is a serious matter to be passing drugs inside the courthouse”.

The sentence will run concurrently with a five-year sentence O’Sullivan received in February for an armed raid.

On that occasion, a 13-year-old boy buying chips for himself was grabbed and threatened that his throat would be cut with a Stanley blade by O’Sullivan, who was demanding money from the man working behind the counter.

O’Sullivan pleaded guilty to the robbery of €85 at Murph’s chipper on the Old Youghal Rd in Cork on October 27, 2013, and producing a knife during the crime.