Man gets 10 years for holding €87k of heroin

A man from "a very rural area of Wicklow" who held €87,000 worth of heroin for a notorious drug dealing thug has been given a 10-year sentence by Judge Donagh McDonagh at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

John Browne (aged 32), from Rednagh, Augrhim pleaded guilty to having the drugs for sale or supply on December 3, 2004 at Gateway Court, Ballymun.

Judge McDonagh previously adjourned sentencing because he said he was "a tad unhappy" with the value given for the 435 grammes heroin cache but prosecuting counsel, Mr Paul Carroll BL, said that the Director of Public Prosecution was satisfied with the original evaluation.

Mr Brendan Grehan SC, defending, told Judge McDonagh that he was not disputing the value of the drugs.

Judge McDonagh suspended the last five years of the sentence after he said he couldn’t "sweep away the fact that €87,000 of heroin was a substantial amount of drugs".

He also took into account that Browne was "acting more as a courier than a processor."

Detective Garda Jim O’Driscoll told Mr Carroll that the heroin was recovered by gardaí on foot of confidential information.

Browne took responsibility for the heroin which he was holding for a west Dublin drugs thug.

Mr Grehan said Browne was a native of "very rural area of Wicklow" who had been preyed on by the drugs thug due to his serious heroin addiction.

He admitted his role from the start and followed this up with a guilty plea.

It was accepted he didn’t gain financially from drugs criminality.

He said that Browne was "capable of saving himself" if he applied himself further along the path of his rehabilitation and said that there is a place waiting for him in a drug treatment centre.

Mr Grehan added that if the sentence was partly suspended Browne would be "handed the keys to his own future" and would be aware that if he defaulted he would have to go back to prison and serve the balance of his sentence.