The Director of Public Prosecutions has appealed a six year suspended sentence imposed earlier this summer on a 26-year-old man caught with the largest ever amount of heroin seized in Cork.
The DPP has lodged appeal papers with the Court of Criminal Appeal against what he believes to be the leniency of the sentence imposed on Brian Wall, Beech Tree Avenue, Shanakiel, Cork who was caught by gardaí with a total of €145,000 worth of heroin.
Wall pleaded guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court in June to a total of four charges relating to the seizure of heroin when he was stopped and arrested by gardaí at St Anne’s Hospital in Shanakiel on September 27th 2007.
Judge Patrick Moran noted that a probation report on Wall concluded he was at the lowest level of risk in terms of re-offending and he accepted that Wall was genuinely remorseful for the devastatation he had caused his family and his partner and their young child.
He also noted that one the charges to which Wall pleaded was Section 15A of the Misuse of Drugs Act where the Oireachtas had provided for a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years save for exceptional circumstances but he believed such circumstances did apply in this case.
“You’re a young man trying to get on with your life - I think you have learned your lesson from this episode,” said Judge Moran.
He sentenced Wall to six years but suspended him on condition that he be of good behaviour for a period of three years.
The court had heard how gardaí had arrested Wall and recovered a total of 726.99 grammes of heroin valued at €145,600.
Wall was working as a drugs storeman and delivery man and he told gardaí he had been given a kilo of heroin the previous week to deliver, and that he had already delivered three deals and was to be paid a total of €2,000.
The court heard that Wall, who was not a heroin addict, co-operated with gardaí from the outset but he stopped short of saying who gave him the drugs.
Wall told the court that he greatly regretted his involvement in the drugs business and said that he had injured his leg playing soccer which meant that he could not get bonuses at work and was trying to pay a mortgage on his new home from his basic earnings of €580 a month.
Breaking down in the witness box, Wall apologised to the court and his family for the shame he had brought them and he asked for a second chance. “If the court gives me a second chance, there is no way I will ever be in this situation again,” he said.
