A Dublin man who was pressured into delivering more than €120,000 worth of cannabis in order to pay off his brother’s drug debt has been given a two-and-a-half year jail term after his original suspended sentence was deemed too lenient.
Brian O'Grady (32) with an address in Liam Mellows Road, Finglas, Dublin, had pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to one count of possessing cannabis resin for sale or supply at Aldi car park in Finglas on February 12th 2016. The drugs had a street value of €122,000.
Judge Martin Nolan at the original sentence hearing said he would take the "unusual step" of departing from the mandatory minimum 10-year jail term and hand down a wholly suspended five-year sentence.
He accepted O’Grady had made a “huge error of judgment” when he agreed to deliver 20 kgs of cannabis resin in order to help pay off his younger step-brother’s €2,000 drug debt.
“He involved himself in a serious crime but I would estimate his moral culpability was quite low,” Judge Nolan said. “He wanted to help his step-brother. That was misguided.”
The Director of Public Prosecutions successfully sought a review of O'Grady's wholly suspended sentence on grounds that it was "unduly lenient". The Court of Appeal agreed and imposed a two-and-a-half year jail term on Thursday.
Giving judgment in the three-judge court, President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice George Birmingham said O'Grady, who was not the subject of a surveillance operation nor on the garda radar, was observed participating in the drugs transaction in Finglas.
When asked by gardaí where he had collected the drugs, he said he could not say; that it was more trouble than it was worth, indicating that he was afraid to go further. He told gardaí he “had to do stuff to pay off a debt”.
Det Garda Seán Smith agreed that it was a feature of the drug trade that when a debt is incurred by a family member, it was “rolled over and followed family members around”.
O’Grady’s stepbrother had a modest debt of €2,000 but because of the family dynamic (his father had previously assisted a family member in relation to a €10,000 debt which they had to borrow), O’Grady made a “disastrous error of judgment”.
Counsel for O’Grady, Michael Bowman SC, said his client lost his job due to downsizing about six months before this incident. Had he not lost his job, Mr Bowman stressed, O’Grady would have been in a position to help his younger brother but, being unemployed, that was not an option, and so he made the decision to become involved in this criminal activity.
O’Grady had 11 previous convictions including a number for public order offences and road traffic matters, the court heard.
‘A step too far’
Mr Justice Birmingham said the decision to suspend the sentence in its entirety was “simply a step too far”. He said O’Grady made a conscious decision to engage in serious criminal activity and so, his situation was to be contrasted with individuals driven to participate by the ravages of addiction.
The Court of Appeal was “not convinced” it was proper to categorise his involvement as being on the “lower level”. He brought a significant amount of drugs to the rendezvous and it was he who handed them over to those who had travelled from Cork.
The Court of Appeal did not accept the fact that O’Grady’s motivation was to assist his brother who had gotten himself into an extremely difficult situation was a “relevant consideration”.
A difficult family background was a relevant consideration, “though, sadly, such difficult backgrounds are not unusual”. It would have caused O’Grady to have a particularly acute sense of family responsibility and family loyalty.
However, notwithstanding the significant mitigation, the court was unable to conclude that these factors “could ever have justified suspending the sentence in its entirety”.
Mr Justice Birmingham, who sat with Mr Justice John Edwards and Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy, said the court must conclude the sentence was "unduly lenient".
O’Grady, who has moved to Britain and is making a new life for himself there, working in construction, was resentenced to five years imprisonment with the final two-and-a-half years suspended. The sentence will run from the date he first goes into custody.