SIX YEAR SENTENCE FOR MERVUE MAN FOR SMUGGLING DRUGS

Date Published: 30-Oct-2009

A city man, who claimed he unknowingly smuggled drugs into the country, has received a six year sentence with one year suspended.

44 year old James McCarthy of Michael Collins Road, Mervue, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of €17,000 worth of cannabis in Dublin Airport on March 26, 2008.

The court heard that McCarthy had gone on a short holiday to Amsterdam and was looking for somewhere to stay when he ran into another Irish man.

The man said McCarthy could stay at his apartment and the two went back and started drinking and taking cocaine.

McCarthy got talking to a girl who asked him to take a bag of clothes home to someone in Ireland.

He was searched by customs officers who found eight packages of cannabis hidden under the clothes in the bag the woman gave him.

Garda Trevor Bulger said McCarthy was a father of two and had a drink and drug problem.

Judge Katherine Delahunt sentenced McCarthy to six years in prison, with one year suspended.