Seven years for woman with drugs in suitcase

A South African national who was caught with almost €80,000 worth of cannabis in her suitcase at Dublin Airport has been sentenced to seven years in prison by Judge Desmond Hogan.

Sasha Whitehead (aged 34), a legal secretary and divorced mother of three, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to being in possession of the drugs worth €79,536 for sale or supply on June 11, 2007. She had no previous convictions.

Judge Hogan said that Whitehead’s plea of guilty, her cooperation with the garda investigation, the fact she had never engaged in criminal activity before and evidence that she was unlikely to re-offend meant that there were specific circumstances to allow him to deviate from the minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years.

He accepted that Whitehead was at the lowest rung of the ladder but said that he must also take into consideration "the devastation brought on this city and country through the availability of drugs" before he suspended the last year of the sentence on strict conditions.

Garda Stephen Boyce told Mr Sean Guerin BL, prosecuting, that Whitehead, of Singati Sands, Sunninghill, Johannesburg, had come from Johansberg via Mardrid when she was stopped by custom and excise officers.

She said she had been paid €2,000 to carry "something" in her suitcase and she did not know that it was cannabis, but she later told gardaí she suspected it was drugs.

Garda Boyce agreed with Ms Isobel Kennedy SC, defending, that Whitehead was not a player "in any capacity" in the drug industry and she could be categorised as a vulnerable person who was used by others.

Ms Kennedy said her client was in "dire financial circumstances" at the time and was heavily in debt. She described her as having a tragic background.

She handed in many testimonies to court including a governor’s report which described Whitehead as being well-motivated in prison and said, not only had she progressed there, but she had helped the other prisoners too.