A Louth farmer who claimed he was “squeaky clean” when he was questioned about a \u20ac1.6 million drug seizure on his property, has been jailed for 10 years at Dundalk Circuit Court.<\/p>\n
John Prendergast, aged 54, with an address at Mill Park, Knockbridge, had pleaded not guilty to the unlawful possession of cannabis and having the drug for sale or supply at the same address on 12 May last year.<\/p>\n
He also denied having cannabis for sale or supply with an aggregate market value of more than \u20ac13,000 – an offence which carries with it a minimum sentence of 10 years.<\/p>\n
The jury heard how as part of a joint customs and garda operation a controlled delivery of a pallet, was made to the defendant’s property shortly after midday, three days after it was intercepted at Dublin Port.<\/p>\n
It had been shipped by a textiles company with an address in Amsterdam and the shipping label was addressed to John P Ballina Creations c\/o John Prendergast Stores, Mill Park, Knockbridge.<\/p>\n
The curtain-sided rigid lorry was driven by a customs officer, and a member of the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau was a passenger.<\/p>\n
The defendant accepted delivery of the pallet and used a forklift truck to move it from the lorry into a shed.<\/p>\n
The pallet contained over 81kg of cannabis in 18 vacuum-packed bags with a street value of \u20ac1,624,900.<\/p>\n
When interviewed, the defendant denied any knowledge of the drugs and claimed he thought the pallet contained air filters.<\/p>\n
In finalising the case today, Judge Dara Hayes noted the defendant denied knowingly receiving the cannabis but said garda\u00ed had found no evidence of Ballina Creations or Ballyfermot filters.<\/p>\n
He had 22 previous convictions, including 11 under the Road Traffic Act and seven Revenue offences, and the court noted he is the principal carer for his elderly mother and a brother with additional needs.<\/p>\n
Judge Hayes acknowledged Prendergast, who had submitted handwritten notes to the court, accepts there was evidence for which a jury could convict him, but he believes all of the information was not put before the court and that “evidence was buried”.<\/p>\n
The judge said the issue was whether he had possession of the drugs with intent for sale or supply and the jury had found that “he had possession in the legal sense of the word”.<\/p>\n
He imposed a 10-year sentence for the Section 15a offence and concurrent sentences of nine years for having the cannabis for sale or supply and four and a half years for unlawful possession of the drug.<\/p>\n
Judge Hayes also directed that Prendergast be given credit for time spent in custody.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Louth farmer who claimed he was “squeaky clean” when he was questioned about a \u20ac1.6 million drug…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-502964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}