A former high-level member of a ruthless criminal organisation who is under a death threat because he helped gardai has been jailed for six years on drugs and firearm charges.
Judge Cyril Kelly, at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, said that Charles Bowden will never be able to live a normal life again and may have to disappear.
Bowden (32), of The Paddocks, Navan Road, Dublin, affirmed signed District Court pleas to a total of nine charges relating to drug dealing and possession of guns at an earlier hearing two weeks ago.
"He will attempt to vanish off the face of the earth when he comes out of prison," Mr Paul O'Higgins SC, for the defence, told Judge Kelly on that occasion.
Bowden is scheduled to give evidence in trials against a self-confessed suspect for the murder of journalist, Veronica Guerin, Mr John Gilligan, who is being detained in Britain on drugs charges, and others in future trials, the court was told.
Cash totalling almost £100,000 which Bowden confessed he earned from drug dealing was confiscated by the State on the direction of Judge Kelly without opposition.
The judge said case law on sentencing defendants who gave assistance to the prosecution was sparse in this jurisdiction.
He had consulted English and Australian case law on the matter before deciding on sentences which were more lenient than would normally be the case for the offences.
The gravity of the offences to which Bowden pleaded guilty was indicated by the fact that seven of the offences carried a maximum of life imprisonment.
Judge Kelly said Bowden had been a high-level member of a ruthless criminal organisation. He was earning by his own admission £3,000 a week from selling drugs and also had control of a lethal arsenal of guns and ammunition.
The gang to which he belonged had shown it had no hesitation in using these weapons. Bowden was held in custody in conditions of great confinement for his own safety and could not attend religious services in prison for security reasons. He was also moved to a different cell every night.
Judge Kelly said many factors had to be taken into consideration in sentencing. These included Bowden's early guilty plea, his remorse, the unlikelihood he might re-offend, and the saving to the State by avoiding a lengthy trial.
Judge Kelly imposed seven sentences of six years each, and two sentences of three years, all to run concurrent and to date from March 11th last when Bowden went into custody.
Bowden pleaded guilty to five charges of having cannabis for sale or supply at a rented lock-up premises in Greenmount Industrial Estate, Harolds Cross, on dates from November 10th, 1995, to October 3rd, 1996.
He also admitted unlawful possession of cannabis and cocaine on or about October 3rd to October 5th, at Greenmount Industrial Estate and at his home, and to having guns and ammunition at the Old Court Road, Tallaght, between November 10th, 1995, and October 3rd, 1996, with the intention of enabling another person or persons to endanger life.
At the first hearing, Det Insp John O'Mahony said Bowden's co-operation with the gardai was carried out in the full knowledge of the serious risk to his own life and without any deal being offered to him.
Gardai took threats against Bowden's life seriously. His house was gutted by fire last April on the night after a telephone threat was made. His separated wife with whom he is on good terms, their three children, and his girlfriend are all under 24-hour armed protection.
Mr Peter Charleton SC, for the prosecution, said the Director of Public Prosecutions had made "an irrevocable decision" not to prosecute Bowden in connection with the murder of Ms Guerin on the basis of statements made by him up to now, future statements, or of any evidence he might give in proceedings against others.
Det Insp O'Mahony, National Bureau of Crime Investigation, said Bowden was arrested at his home on October 5th, 1996, on suspicion of being in possession of information about firearms at the junction of Naas Road and Boot Road on June 26th, 1996, the day Ms Guerin was murdered.
He admitted being a member of a gang who imported a huge amount of cannabis into Ireland from Holland via Cork.
Det Insp O'Mahony said there were two others higher up in the gang hierarchy between him and the leader whom Bowden was unaware of until the time of the Veronica Guerin murder. He met the leader some time after first hearing his name when he handed money to him in Dublin.