Gardaí are too lax in verifying statements by South African women smuggling drugs who cite dire personal circumstances as their reasons, Judge Patrick McCartan has said.
At Dublin Circuit Criminal Court he adjourned sentence on an African woman who was arrested last year with drugs in her luggage after coming off a flight from Johannesburg via Paris.
Jannette Shultz (37), a Johannesburg native with a Namibian address, pleaded guilty to smuggling €35,000-worth of cannabis resin into Dublin Airport on August 10th, 2001.
Judge McCartan said he simply could not go ahead with the sentence until gardaí properly verified her statement. Garda Damien Rogers, Santry Garda Station, told Judge McCartan that Shultz claimed she had agreed to smuggle the drugs because she was in dire need for money.
She told gardaí her husband of over 20 years had separated from her and thrown her out of their home. She had no skills that would make her employable.
Garda Rogers said it was at this low point in her life that two Nigerian men had approached her to smuggle drugs and she had agreed. Garda Rogers said that a routine check had been run through Interpol to see if she had any previous convictions, but he had not spoken to any authorities in South Africa.
Garda Rogers agreed with Judge McCartan that it would have been easy to do so, but he had no reason to disbelieve Shultz as she had been co-operative with gardaí and had told them whom she was to contact in Dublin to deliver the drugs.
Judge McCartan asked Garda Rogers how he thought a person such as Shultz, who was engaging in "deceit and subterfuge" by the very act of smuggling the drugs, would have "no reason to lie". He said Shultz had set out to hoodwink authorities here and gardaí should have paid more attention to checking her background.
He said legislation on drug trafficking was strict, and allowed a lowering of the maximum sentence only in exceptional circumstances. If Shultz's statement stood up to scrutiny, her circumstances would fall into the "exceptional" category, but before he exercised his discretion in the matter, gardaí would need to verify her statement. He gave gardaí until March 11th to do so.