A MAN has lost his appeal against the severity of a 25-year sentence imposed on him for having cocaine with a street value of €440 million for sale or supply.
It was the State’s largest cocaine seizure, which was found floating off Mizen Head after a boat capsized in July 2007.
Joseph Daly and others were caught when, while attempting to bring 1.5 tonnes of drugs ashore, the operation went badly wrong and their boat capsized, sending 62 bales of cocaine into the water.
Daly (44), Bexley, Kent, was given the 25-year sentence by Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin in July 2008, after being found guilty by a jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.
The three-judge Court of Criminal Appeal of Mr Justice Liam McKechnie, presiding, sitting with Mr Justice Declan Budd and Mr Justice Daniel O’Keeffe, dismissed Daly’s appeal against the severity of his sentence.
Patrick McCarthy SC, for Daly, had argued that Judge Ó Donnabháin had imposed an excessive sentence and Daly was not a prime mover in the drug run as he lacked the finances to bring drugs from the Caribbean to Ireland.
While that term could be deemed harsh, Mr Justice McKechnie said the trial judge was entitled to impose “a grave sentence” for what was “a grave crime”.
While Daly and his co-accused may not have been at the top of the criminal gang behind the operation, he and his co-accused “knew at all times what was going on” and were “very much willing lieutenants”. Mr Justice McKechnie said Daly and the others were operating on behalf of organised crime groups based in Britain and Spain.
Two of Daly’s co-accused had been jailed for a record 30 years and a fourth was jailed for 10 years after he pleaded guilty to the drug smuggling charges.