Offaly man jailed after heroin found in unusual hiding place

AN Offaly drug dealer was keeping heroin in his turf shed, Tullamore Circuit Court heard.

Oliver Murphy, McAuley Drive, Birr had €17,374 worth of the drug when gardai searched it on November 25 last year, Judge Keenan Johnson was told.

Garda Helen Colleran told a sentencing hearing that guards spoke to Mr Murphy's mother when they called to his address and she said he was out the back in a shed.

Garda Colleran said €90 was found on the accused and a bag with 124 grams of heroin in it was found in the turf shed.

In interviews at the local garda station later, 43-year-old Mr Murphy admitted having the drug and said he had started on heroin when he was 17 and prior to his arrest was smoking seven to eight bags a day to relax.

He would sell six to seven grams a week for €70 a gram and the sales would be made using his mobile phone.

Garda Colleran said Mr Murphy stated he had paid €3,300 for the drugs which were found and he had been told at the time the amount was three ounces.

While he said that he may have been just holding the heroin for a short time at his address, he accepted the bag from the turf shed was his and he was going to use it to sell and get drugs for himself.

The court also heard that when his parents would go to bed at night he would cut a few bags in the sitting room.

He agreed with the gardai that he had a serious addiction and he would sell between €100 and €150 worth of heroin each to about five people and when they would pay him he would pay off his own debt and get more.

The accused had four previous convictions for possession of drugs for sale or supply dating back t0 2004 and had been given a number of suspended sentences, varying from two months up to 11 months.

In his own evidence Mr Murphy said he had been on heroin since he was 17 but had some breaks during that time, the longest being three years.

A plasterer by trade, work references from two former employers were handed in, including one who was a former garda and both indicated what a good and skilled worker he was.

Mr Murphy apologised for what he had done and said that because he would be turning 44 in June he knew he would have to get his life together now and change things.

He was satisfied that he now had a good counsellor who understood him and he was on a methadone programme where his prescription had reduced from 100ml to 69ml.

He was attending the Community Alcohol and Drugs Service every two weeks and was also conscious that he would have to be able to help his parents who were both in their 70s.

He had been in prison before and asked Judge Johnson for a chance on this occasion, saying there were plenty of people who would employ him.

“If I don't turn my life around now there is no future for me,” said Mr Murphy.

Judge Johnson said the offence was a very serious one because of the damaging and corrosive impact of the illicit use of drugs which were a scourge on modern society.

The accused was peddling misery by engaging in the sale and supply of heroin and that was ironic given his own situation with such an addictive drug.

At the same time, the judge said the accused struck him as an inherently decent individual but heroin was the kind of drug which kept dragging people back into addiction and it had blighted and completely destroyed Mr Murphy's life.

Judge Johnson also remarked that one of the reasons the accused fell off the wagon was because drugs services had been reduced during the lockdown. The man also had a history of depression and anxiety.

He set the headline sentence at seven-and-a-half years and taking mitigating factors into account, a five-year sentence was appropriate, with the final three years suspended.

The conditions of the suspension are that Mr Murphy enter into a five-year bond to keep the peace, remain under the supervision of the Probation Service for 18 months, submit urine samples for analysis and engage with Narcotics Anonymous.

Before the accused was led away to begin his two-year sentence Judge Johnson told him he very much regretted having to impose a custodial term but he had to do so.