Chef allowed drugs to be stored at his home in Limerick

A CHEF who owed a €5,000 drugs debt was pressured by criminal elements to allow them store drugs at his home, a court has heard.

Jamie Power, 37, of Laurel Drive, Loughboy, Kilkenny has pleaded guilty to “knowingly permitting his property to be used” for the sale and supply of controlled drugs.

During a sentencing hearing, Detective Garda Ronan O’Reilly said significant quantities of cannabis and amphetamines were found when gardai searched the defendant’s rented home at Caisleann na hAbhainn, Castletroy on April 12, 2014.

He said the drugs, which had a total value of more than €43,000, were found in a locked bedroom which Mr Power did not have access to.

The detective told John O’Sullivan BL the defendant had taken out a six month lease on the house three weeks earlier after the deposit was paid by another individual.

Prior to that he was living in student accommodation in Moylish as he was studying at LIT.

Mr O’Sullivan said the defendant was approached by a criminal figures and told if he rented the house in his name, his drug debt would be cleared.

Andrew Sexton SC said his client would not have been in a position to pay the €1,400 deposit and that he had his suspicions that drugs were being stored in the bedroom.

“He was under pressure to go along with the arrangement,” he said adding: “It was a room that he used but was not controlled by him,” he said.

Urging the court to treat his client “as fairly as possible” he said he is a hard-working man who was caught up in a “pressure situation”.

When asked why it took more than three years for charges to be preferred, Mr O’Sullivan said a number of other individuals were also the subject of investigation and that the garda file was complex.

Mr Sexton said his client had co-operated with gardai and he submitted the offence was at the lower end of the range.

“He has a paid a certain price already. He knows he has done wrong,” he said.

Adjourning the matter to June, Judge O’Donnell commented it was the first time he had encountered such a case “in a drugs context”.

He requested that a probation report be prepared.