Eight-year sentence for €3m drugs 'delivery boy'

A drugs “delivery boy” who had his ankles and knees sledgehammered by his bosses after gardaí seized almost €3m worth of cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy has been given an eight-year sentence.

John Paul Duncan (aged 26) was left in the Dublin Mountains to find his own way to hospital after the attack.

Duncan, of Drumcairn Aveue, Tallaght, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of the drugs in Swiftwood Apartments, Saggart on November 26, 2007.

Judge Martin Nolan said he had to take account of the fact that drugs have serious effects on the communities they go into and that Duncan must have known the type of people with whom he was getting involved.

Judge Nolan noted the mitigating circumstances and imposed an eight-year sentence.

Detective Garda Ronan Doolin told Mr Remy Farrell BL, prosecuting, that gardaí who had mounted a surveillance operation on two Ford Transit vans in the car park of a Saggart apartment block observed Duncan taking a bag out of one of the vans and putting it into his car.

Gardaí intercepted Duncan and found the bag to contain cannabis resin. Gardaí then searched the two vans.

Inside the first van from which Duncan had taken the bag they found cannabis resin estimated to be worth more than €2m.

Inside the second van, which Duncan had been seen driving earlier that year, they found cannabis herb, cannabis resin and 56,000 ecstasy tablets valued at nearly €700,000.

Det Gda Doolin said the total value of all the drugs found was €2,803,294.

During a search of an apartment in the complex which Duncan had been using they found drugs paraphernalia such as a “tick list” and a pressing machine. Duncan exercised his right to silence during much of his garda interviews and denied all knowledge of the vans and apartment.

Duncan has 14 previous convictions for road traffic and public order offences.

Det Gda Doolin agreed with defence counsel, Mr Michael O’Higgins SC, that the contents of the vans “were never his property” and there were no signs of “excessive lifestyle”.

He agreed he was the only member of his family to be in trouble with the gardaí.

He agreed gardaí accepted that Duncan was given use of an apartment owed by his bosses in the complex where the vans were found. He accepted Duncan may have had a substantial drugs debt and had been abusing alcohol, cocaine and cannabis.

Mr O’Higgins said after the drugs were confiscated Duncan had been taken to the Dublin mountains where he received “a very substantial hiding from a number of individuals.” Duncan’s ankles and kneecaps were sledgehammered, leaving significant scarring, by people unhappy at the loss of the drugs.

Det Gda Doolin agreed with Mr O’Higgins that Duncan may have been “lucky” because a number of people had been “summarily executed” in similar situations.

Mr O’Higgins said “it was a measure of the people he was dealing with that he was left to find his own way to hospital and did not wish to take the matter up with gardaí”.

He said the value of where he lay in the “food chain” could be measured by the treatment that was meted out to him.

He said Duncan had a long history of solvent abuse, particularly a high level of cocaine use and latterly smoking of heroin.

He asked the court to take into account that the drugs did not belong to Duncan and he was effectively a “delivery boy” in return for getting the free run of the apartment.