Sentence for drug possession suspended over jacket appeal

A man caught with €2,000 worth of cocaine in a jacket appealed a jail sentence on the basis he had snatched the jacket in a burglary and did not know the drugs were there.

“This was a slightly unusual case”, state solicitor Frank Nyhan said at the outset of the appeal by William Delaney, of Bay 5, Spring Lane halting site, Blackpool, Cork.

Delaney, who is in his mid-20s, had no previous drugs convictions but got a four-month jail term in Cork District Court for cocaine possession. He did not deny he was in possession of cocaine but appealed the severity of the sentence at Cork Circuit Appeals Court yesterday.