Accomplice in Ireland's biggest drug-smuggling case jailed

The youngest of the men involved in Ireland’s biggest ever drug-smuggling case was jailed for 10 years today as it was claimed that he ended up in jail because he stayed around to raise the alarm to save the life of a drowning accomplice.

Gerard Hagan, aged 24, could have run away like another man involved in the crime but he stayed around to call the emergency services, his senior counsel, James O’Mahony said yesterday.

“Gerard Hagan could have left the scene, the sea was very rough, Martin Wanden – if left there – would have died. By contacting the emergency services he brought attention to himself and ended up in custody,” Mr O’Mahony SC said.

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin said there were aggravating and mitigating factors in the case, the foremost mitigating factor being Hagan’s plea of guilty.

“You made your admissions, your convictions are minor, you are considerably younger than any of the other cynics I saw in this case. You did not engage in the calculated perjury that I saw,” Judge Ó Donnabháin said.

A jury convicted three co-accused in July after an eight-week trial on the charge of possession of cocaine for sale or supply when its street value exceeded €13,000 on July 2, at Dunlough Bay, Mizen, Goleen, Co Cork.

Joseph Daly of 9 Carisbrooke Avenue, Bexley, Kent, was jailed for 25 years. Sentences of 30 years were imposed on Perry Wharrie, aged 48, of 60 Pryles Lane, Essex, England, and Martin Wanden, aged 45, who is also English but of no fixed abode.

Referring to the approach taken by those three men in the trial the judge said they had engaged in the most cynical perjury before a jury that he had ever seen.

Detective Sergeant Feargal Foley testified yesterday that a rigid inflatable boat (RIB) got into difficulties at Dunlough Bay in West Cork early on the morning of July 2 2007. It contained over 1,500 kilos of high-purity cocaine with a street value of €440 million. The RIB’s engine had been filled with diesel instead of unleaded petrol and the boat was blown of course into Dunlough Bay where the illegal cargo fell into the sea and floated beside the stricken boat.

Gerard Hagan from 85 Hollow Croft, Liverpool, left the court after getting the 10-year sentence, he was asked how he felt, and he smiled and said, “Good, yeah.”