Man jailed for seven years for €658k cannabis possession

A Dublin man who got into drugs to fit in with school peers has been given a seven-year sentence for possessing €658,000 of cannabis.

Mark Fitzpatrick (aged 25) previously had his sentence adjourned to allow him attend a residential drug treatment program he has successfully completed. He has two previous minor convictions.

Fitzpatrick, of Griffith Road, Finglas, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possessing nearly 94 kilogrammes of cannabis resin worth €658,000 at Donaghmede Shopping Centre on April 7, 2009.

Judge Katherine Delahunt commended Fitzpatrick on using his time in custody since his arrest wisely and told him: “You are an intelligent man and someone who must be seen to have good prospects for the future.”

She noted however that he had acted as a drugs courier “the person who is the effective shield between gardaí and people much higher up the ladder.”

Judge Delahunt imposed a seven-year sentence and suspended the final four years on strict conditions.

Detective Garda Ronan Cowley of the Garda National Drugs Unit agreed with Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, defending, that his client had been “dared” to take cannabis by his school peers when he was 13 and from then his drug abuse “systematically got worse and worse” till he was “hopelessly addicted”.

Det Gda Cowley agreed that Fitzpatrick ran into debt and dealers made various attempts to intimidate him and his family.

He agreed that Fitzpatrick went to live in Holland for a time to escape these pressures but returned when his family bought him a plane ticket and then got involved in a large drug transaction.

Det Gda Cowley told the judge that he believed Fitzpatrick was the “very lowest” ranking in the criminal enterprise.

He told Ms Anne-Marie Lawlor BL, prosecuting, that a colleague on the drug squad had been monitoring Donaghmede Shopping Centre’s carpark on foot of confidential information about a large drugs transaction due to take place.

The detective spotted Fitzpatrick and a co-accused transfer 14 boxes from a blue transit van into a silver Ford Fiesta’s boot shortly after both vehicles arrived in the carpark.

Other gardaí followed the two vehicles as they exited and headed towards the M1.

Det Gda Cowley said colleagues arrested Fitzpatrick at Swords around 30 minutes after the drug transaction and discovered directions to a Coolock-based shipping company and a large number of boxes in his van.

He said these boxes were full of tiles but those found in the Fiesta’s boot contained cannabis.

Det Gda Cowley told Ms Lawlor that Fitzpatrick was co-operative and honest during interview and nothing of evidential value was found during a subsequent search of his home.

The detective garda agreed with Mr MacEntee that his client had “a long battle with drug addiction” since his early teens but had never come to garda attention in his youth.

He accepted that Fitzpatrick had been “grossly overweight” with a speech impediment as a teenager, was a “laughing stock” among fellow pupils and had first taken cannabis as a dare to show he was “one of the gang”.

He agreed Fitzpatrick had come from a “very decent family”.

Mr MacEntee submitted that Fitzpatrick had “resolved to overhaul his life” with the “heroic assistance of his mother and father.” He said Fitzpatrick had not let the court down and had done everything required of him.