Dealer gets three years over repeat heroin offence

A heroin dealer who was caught with a quantity of the drug in Cork travelled to Dublin for another stash in the vain hope of selling it to clear his debt from the first drugs bust. 

Judge Gerard O’Brien imposed a sentence of five years with the last two years suspended on Owen Murphy at Cork Circuit Criminal Court yesterday.

Detective Sergeant Jason Lynch said Murphy, who was from Carrigaline but living at an apartment at 69, Summerhill North, Cork, was stopped by drugs squad gardaí at Patrick’s Quay, Cork, on March 23, 2016.

Murphy was about to get into a taxi when he was stopped and arrested. The street value of the heroin in his possession was €34,000.

He fully admitted his part in the drug dealing.

He told gardaí he had gone to Dublin to collect the drugs and bring them back to Cork. The reason he gave was that he had incurred a drugs debt when gardaí seized his drugs on a previous occasion and was under pressured to clear this debt.

Brendan Kelly, defending, said the accused was trying to clear the previous drugs debt and had an extremely unstable lifestyle at the time.

Judge O’Brien said it was not clear if the accused had shown remorse.

The previous seizure of his stash of drugs occurred in 2015 and he was jailed for it in November last year.

He was sentenced to three years in jail with the last two years suspended on the single count of having the heroin on December 7, 2015, for sale or supply.