Drug-smuggling former prison officer loses appeal against sentence

A former prison officer jailed for smuggling heroin, alcohol and other contraband in to inmates of Mountjoy prison has failed in an appeal against his four-year sentence.

The Court of Criminal Appeal held that the custodial term imposed on Dillon O’Brien (aged 38) was within the “acceptable range” for what it deemed to be a most serious offence.

Presiding judge Mr Justice Donal O’Donnell, sitting with Mr Justice Declan Budd and Mr Justice Daniel O’Keeffe, said that prison contraband of any kind was “corrosive of discipline” and created “an alternative regime” within the prison walls.

Mr Justice O’Donnell said the fact that controlled drugs, alcohol and mobile phones were smuggled in to the facility by a prison officer on a repeated basis was a serious breach of trust and could not be viewed in any benign light.

O'Brien, of Charnwood Meadows, Clonsilla, Dublin, had pleaded guilty to two counts relating to the trafficking of alcohol and mobile phones to inmates of Mountjoy prison on March 13, 2007.

He also pleaded guilty to three counts relating to the conspiracy to convey heroin, cocaine and a mobile phone to inmates of the prison on dates between January 1, 2005 and March 15, 2007.

He was sentenced to four years imprisonment by Judge Katherine Delahunt at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on December 7 last year.

Counsel for the applicant, Mr Micheal O’Higgins SC, told the court that O’Brien engaged in a “ludicrous and naive” operation which cumulated in a “spectacular fall from grace”.

He said O’Brien is subject to a uniquely harsh regime at the Midlands prison, where for his own safety he is afforded just two hours of freedom from his cell per day, reduced to one and a half hours at weekends.

Mr O’Higgins argued that Judge Delahunt did not give adequate regard to the mitigating factors in the case and did not take on board O’Brien’s professed motivation for smuggling in the contraband, namely his addiction to drugs.

Seamus Clarke BL, for the State, argued that O’Brien’s offending represented a very serious breach of trust and it was “very difficult” to view a four-year sentence as excessive.

Mr Clarke said it was a “dangerous slippery slope” to find that prisoner officers or gardaí who commit offences are automatically entitled to mitigation because of their position in society.