AN ENGLISH man who imported £130,000 worth of cannabis resin from Spain has been jailed for seven years by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
The court was told that Jason Colyer had lived in Spain with his parents for 11 years and accepted £700 to act as a drugs courier because they were in dire financial circumstances as a result of losing £80,000 in a stockmarket crash.
Judge Cyril Kelly was told Colyer's parents now live in caravans in Alicante to where they moved after selling their thriving clothes shops business.
Colyer (26), of El Tibruan, Albir, Alicante, Spain, and formerly of Bridgeway Avenue, east London, pleaded guilty to importing 12kg of cannabis worth £130,000 at Dublin Airport on December 13th, 1996.
Garda Christopher Elliott told Mr Bruce Antoniotti, prosecuting, that a Customs sniffer dog detected the cannabis in a bag on the airport carousel. The Customs officers detained Colyer when he collected the bag after his flight from Malaga.
Colyer freely admitted he was offered £700, his travel ticket and £80 sterling for taxi fares to import the cannabis. He said he did not know the person who hired him.
Garda Elliott agreed with Mr Brendan Grogan SC (with Mr Luan O Braonain), defending, that Colyer was not a hardened criminal. Mr Grogan asked for leniency in view of his client's guilty plea and the fact he was his parents' sole help.
Judge Kelly said that, considering the havoc wreaked by drugs on the community, he had no alternative but to impose a seven-year sentence.