Man caught with €300k stash of cannabis in Sunday's Well jailed

BEING caught with a €300,000 stash of cannabis at a house in Sunday’s Well resulted in the culprit getting jailed for three and a half years.

Judge John Martin imposed a sentence of five years with the last 18 months suspended at Cork Circuit Criminal Court in the case against 33-year-old Corkman Stephen O’Hara of 17 Winter’s Hill, Sunday’s Well.

The accused signed pleas of guilty to possessing cannabis herb and possession for sale or supply in relation to €6,000 worth of the drug on Grattan Street on January 5.

But the main seizure of cannabis — with a street value of €300,000 — at his home address at Winter’s Hill, Sunday’s Well, saw him charged with possessing cannabis herb and possessing cannabis herb for sale of supply — in a category of offence that could have carried a minimum 10-year sentence.

However, Judge Martin said there were exceptional circumstances that allowed for a departure from that minimum term.

Detective Garda Robert Kennedy of the Cork City Divisional Drugs Squad charged him with the most significant count of having cannabis for sale or supply when its value exceeded €13,000. This threshold figure allows for the possibility of a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in jail.

Stephen O’Hara signed a plea of guilty to that charge as well as a charge of money-laundering in respect of €15,585 cash seized at his home on the same occasion.