A Co Louth farmer who claimed he was \u201csqueaky clean\u201d when he was questioned about a \u20ac1.6 million drug seizure on his property, has been jailed for 10 years.<\/p>\n
John Prendergast (54), of Mill Park, Knockbridge, had pleaded not guilty at Dundalk Circuit Court to the unlawful possession of cannabis and having the drug for sale or supply at the same address on May 12th last year. <\/p>\n
He also denied having cannabis with an aggregate market value of more than \u20ac13,000 for sale or supply \u2013 an offence which carries a minimum sentence of 10 years under section 15a of the Misuse of Drugs Act. <\/p>\n
The jury heard that a controlled delivery of a pallet was made to the defendant\u2019s property, as part of a joint Revenue-Garda operation, three days after the drug haul was intercepted at Dublin Port.<\/p>\n
It had been shipped by a textiles company with an address in Amsterdam. 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 to Prendergast\u2019s property by a Customs officer with a member of the Garda National Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau as 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 more than 81kg of cannabis in 18 vacuum-packed bags. This had an estimated street value of more than \u20ac1.6 million.<\/p>\n
When interviewed, the defendant denied any knowledge of the drugs and claimed he thought the pallet contained air filters.<\/p>\n
Finalising the case on Tuesday, Judge Dara Hayes noted the defendant denied knowingly receiving the cannabis but said garda\u00ed had found no evidence of Ballina Creations.<\/p>\n
Prendergast had 22 previous convictions, including 11 under the Road Traffic Act and seven for Revenue offences. The court noted that he is the principal carer for his mother and a brother with additional needs.<\/p>\n
The judge acknowledged that Prendergast, who submitted handwritten notes to the court, accepts there was evidence on which a jury could convict him. However, he believed all of the information was not put before the court and that \u201cevidence was buried\u201d.<\/p>\n
The judge said the issue was whether he had possession of the drugs with intent for their sale or supply and the jury had found \u201che had possession in the legal sense of the word\u201d.<\/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 4\u00bd years for unlawful possession. He directed that the defendant be given credit for time spent in custody.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Co Louth farmer who claimed he was \u201csqueaky clean\u201d when he was questioned about a \u20ac1.6 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[36527,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-504262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-courts-service","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504262","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=504262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}