Man jailed for heroin he 'found' in garden

A 30-year-old man who told gardaí that he found heroin valued at €31,000 in his back garden has been sentenced to ten years by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Judge Katherine Delahunt suspended four years of the sentence saying Darren Shevlin seemed to have been holding the drugs to pay a debt to someone he was in fear of and showed a "lack of understanding" in relation to his crime.

Shevlin, of Roberts Street, Dublin 8, pleaded guilty to possession of the drug for sale or supply at his home on May 3, 2006.

Garda William Hutchinson told Mary Gearty BL, prosecuting, that gardaí had obtained a warrant to search Shevlin’s home and found €10,500 worth of heroin on his person and a further amount valued at €21,000 in his bedroom.

He told gardaí he had been cleaning his back garden three days earlier and when he discovered the drugs. He said he would have handed the heroin in to gardaí if he had known its value but was going to show it to another person instead when he was caught. He said he had never taken heroin himself.

Ms Gearty told Judge Katherine Delahunt that Shevlin had no previous conviction and that while he had stuck to his story the prosecution did not accept it.

Aileen Donnelly SC, defending, said her client had spent a year in custody in relation to this charge. She accepted that his version of events was untrue but she did not have any other explanation to offer the court.