A YOUNG mother who was preyed upon by a Limerick criminal gang to courier drugs worth €24,000 and store a handgun, has avoided going to jail because of the “wholly exceptional” circumstances of the case.
Philippa Martin (26), of Cliona Park, Moyross, had never come to the attention of gardaí before she was stopped on May 23rd, 2010, for not wearing a seat belt.
The garda who stopped her on the Dock Road in Limerick became suspicious after she became nervous and visibly shaken, Limerick Circuit Court heard yesterday. Garda Brian Ruddy searched the boot of Martin’s Opel Astra and found four plastic packages containing cannabis with an estimated street value of €24,063.
In a follow-up search of her house in Moyross, gardaí found a handgun and ammunition hidden in a hot press in the kitchen.
Martin pleaded guilty to possession of cannabis for the purpose of sale or supply at Dock Road on May 23rd, 2010. She also pleaded guilty to possession of a handgun and two rounds of ammunition at Cliona Park on the same date.
Det Garda Peter Colleran said Martin was a single mother living alone near a member of a criminal gang. He accepted that duress was a feature in the case, and agreed there was “serious fear pressing down on this lady” who had never come on the Garda radar before this incident.
Defence counsel Andrew Sexton said the duress his client had come under was of a “very poignant variety”. She was a single mother living in “as difficult a situation as you can encounter and was preyed upon”.
He also told the court the father of Martin’s young children had died tragically in recent weeks.
Judge Carroll Moran said the accused woman had acted as a courier for the drugs and a store lady for the gun and bullets. It was her “criminal inexperience” that caused her nervousness when she was stopped by Garda Ruddy for not wearing a seat belt.
The judge said the circumstances in cases such as this had to be “wholly exceptional” for a custodial sentence not to be imposed. Taking into account Martin’s previous good record, the fact she did not own the drugs and was acting under duress and not receiving payment, he imposed a five-year suspended jail sentence.