A self-confessed drug dealer and mother of three has requested that she be imprisoned because she claims to be in fear of an unnamed person who is due for release from custody.
Sharon McManus (41), Grange Abbey Crescent, Donaghmede, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of €6,540 of cannabis resin for sale or supply at her home on August 23rd, 2012.
Garda James Muldowney told Una Tighe, prosecuting, that McManus had received a four-year suspended sentence from Judge Desmond Hogan in November 2011 after she admitted allowing her home to be used for drug dealing in October 2008.
The court heard at the 2011 sentence hearing that the Director of Public Prosecutions accepted that McManus had been under pressure to get involved in the offence and the judge accepted that was the case.
McManus was still under the terms of that suspended sentence when gardaí raided her home in August 2012 and found the cannabis.
Judge Desmond Hogan reactivated the four-year term and imposed a consecutive four-year sentence which he suspended in full on the condition that McManus keep the peace and be of good behaviour for six years upon her release from custody.
Cathal McGreal, defending, told Judge Hogan that McManus did not name anyone in her interview with gardaí in August 2012 and did not mention the fact that she had been under duress.
He said she had been placed under pressure to deal the drugs and had been “warned off” going to the gardaí.
Garda Muldowney agreed with Mr McGreal that shortly after receiving the suspended term, McManus stole a brass light switch from a shop and came to him to hand herself in.
She received a caution at the time but Garda Muldowney accepted that in his experience, this had “been a cry for help”. He told Mr McGreal that he had always indicated to McManus that he was available to her should she need to talk to him about anything.
“I left that door open,” Garda Muldowney added, before he agreed that McManus had not made any contact with him in relation to the more recent offence nor did she “seek the assistance” of any garda.
He said that in the earlier offence there had been a “person of interest” who was due for release from prison soon.
Mr McGreal told Judge Hogan that his client had been acting under duress again. “The fact that she continued to offend is for a reason I cannot put before the court,” he said.
“The court dealt with her in a kindly way in 2011 because it was mentioned that she was being pressurised,” Judge Hogan said, “and she goes back and does the same thing.” He acknowledged that she had a partner and children but added: “What about other young families who have been ravaged by drugs in this country? Why should I just hold out the hand to her again? Once is a mistake, twice is tragic.”
Mr McGreal said his client was requesting that some portion of the previously suspended sentence be reactivated so that she could be imprisoned because he said this would put an end to the pressure on her.
He told the court that going to prison would be a relief for McManus and pointed out that stealing the brass light switch had been a deliberate attempt by her to reactivate the sentence.
“This mythical person doesn’t care whether she gets a sentence,” Judge Hogan said before he added that as soon as McManus was released he would come back looking for his debt arising out of the confiscated drugs.
“I am not buying this suggestion as it is put forward,” the judge said, before he reactivated the four years which had previously been suspended.