A young man who has not come to Garda attention since he was caught with over €140,000 worth of cocaine almost four years ago has avoided a jail term.
Shane Craig (21) was homeless when gardaí stopped him as he was carrying the drugs in a rucksack. The property he was living in at the time was later searched and drug paraphernalia was discovered.
Craig, of Ferrycarrig Park, Coolock, Dublin pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of the drugs worth €142,761 at Foxhill Park, Donaghmede on June 3rd, 2015.
On Monday, Judge Melanie Greally suspended a five-year prison term in full on strict conditions, including that he engage with the Probation Service for five years and be subjected to random drug testing during that time. She said the case could be brought back before her if Craig relapsed into drug addiction.
The judge noted that there were six reports from the Probation Service and that Craig had also been placed on a probation bond for a year after she heard evidence in the case in May 2017.
She noted that Craig’s probation officer was satisfied that he no long used drug and that he “co-operated very fully” with the service, making “extremely positive changes in his circumstances”.
“Both he and his mother were homeless at the time. He was very vulnerable,” Judge Greally said, after she accepted that Craig had now stabilised and was hoping to get into a training programme.
“The Probation Service put him at a very low risk of re-offending,” the judge continued before she added that Craig’s circumstances “puts the case into the very narrow category of a fully suspended sentence”.
Judge Greally took into account Craig’s “challenging circumstances at the time, his significant addiction, drug debt and his mental health problems”.
“He played an important and pivotal role in the distribution of drugs and the items at his home suggested it was not an isolated incident,” Judge Greally said, before she suspended the five year term in full.
At the earlier sentence hearing, the court heard that Craig told gardaí in interview that he had been given the drugs minutes before he was caught with them. He would not say where the drugs had come from or where he was to deliver them.
He claimed he was in fear for his life and had accumulated a drug debt.
Garnet Orange SC, defending, submitted that his client pleaded at an early stage and was not a man who personally benefited from possession of drugs. "He was a runner and holder more than anything else," counsel said.