Englishman gets 10 years for importing drugs

A 53-year-old Englishman who imported over a €1m worth of cannabis into the country has been jailed for 10 years by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Bernard Ryan, of Bollington Road, Miles Patting, Manchester, England, pleaded guilty to importing 206.652 kilograms of cannabis worth a total of €1,446,200 into Dublin on February 2, 2004 via the Dublin Port.

Detective Sergeant Tom Duffy told prosecuting counsel, Ms Mary Rose Gearty BL, that the drugs were concealed under the trailer of a white Ford Transit van on an afternoon ferry into Dublin Port.

Gardaí had been tipped off about the possibility of drugs being concealed in a white van and were conducting a surveillance operation at the Port. Det Sgt Duffy said a number of white vans on the ferry were searched before Ryan’s.

He agreed to a cursory search of the vehicle but told gardaí that the tipping device for its trailer was broken. Gardaí transported Ryan and the van to Santry Garda Station for a more thorough search.

Det Sgt Duffy said that gardaí repaired the tipping device of the van’s trailer, which had been disconnected, and found the cannabis concealed underneath. They were packed into 120 slabs in seven bales measuring two feet by one foot.

Det Sgt Duffy agreed with, Ms Isobel Kennedy SC, counsel for Ryan, that he took full responsibility for the drugs. "It is only cannabis," he told gardaí when the drugs were discovered.

He also admitted to his role in transporting the drugs to Dublin but a certain "fear factor" prevented him from naming the people who had given him the consignment and from telling gardaí where it was headed.

Ms Kennedy told Judge Desmond Hogan that Ryan, formerly a corporal in the British army, had been "a cog in the wheel rather than the ring leader" in making arrangements for the drugs to be imported into the country.

Ms Kennedy also told Judge Hogan that Ryan’s girlfriend, who has been with him for the last 16 years, has been suffering from cancer for the last 10 years and is very seriously ill. At the time of the incident she had also been suffering from pneumonia and complaining of constant cold.

Ryan had agreed to transport the drugs to acquire money to take her on a holiday in a warmer climate in order to alleviate her suffering. He was expecting to be paid Stg£2,500 for it, money that he would use to take his partner on holiday.

Judge Hogan said that while he sympathised with Ryan’s girlfriend and her long-term illness, it could not be regarded as a justification for importing such large amounts of drugs into the country. Ryan had not been a drug addict himself and had done it solely for monetary gain.

Considering, however, that Ryan will have to serve his sentence in a foreign country and his early plea of guilty, Judge Hogan suspended the last two years of his sentence.