An Englishman who was part of a €1.5 million heroin deal between two criminal gangs on both sides of the Irish Sea will be sentenced at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on April 29th.
Stuart Motley faces a potential maximum sentence of life imprisonment for his role and could be jailed for the mandatory minimum term of 10 years.
Gardaí arrested Motley, along with a second Englishman, Stephen Ryan, and an unnamed Irishman following a surveillance operation on a car which arrived in Dublin Port on February 11th, 2003, the court was told.
Officers followed the car to the Dead Man's Inn on the Old Lucan Road, and swooped when Motley took the spare wheel out. They found just over eight kilos of heroin with an estimated street value of €1.478,000 in the tyre.
Det Garda Barry Robinson told Mr Paul Burns BL, prosecuting, that gardaí had earlier observed Ryan taking a rucksack from the Irishman and placing it into the car, which was driven by Motley.
Motley (37), with an address in Cala Honda on Spain's Costa del Sol, but originally from Luton in Bedfordshire, pleaded guilty to the unlawful possession of heroin for sale or supply on February 11th, 2003.
Judge Frank O'Donnell said that in all of these cases he liked to consider matters because "they are all serious and all carry a mandatory, minimum sentence, which is not the maximum".
He remanded Motley in custody until April 29th.
Det Garda Robinson also said that Motley made no admissions to gardaí about the drugs while he was in Clondalkin Garda station.
He added that the accused had no previous convictions in Ireland but had 16 in England for minor matters back in the eighties.
Mr Remy Farrell BL, (with Mr Hugh Hartnett SC), for Motley, said his client had a 16-year-old daughter and during the five months that he had spent in custody before being given High Court bail "matters of a delicate nature" happened to her while she was in the care of others.
This was of great distress to Motley because he wasn't there for her and also would not be present to give her support when those matters came before the courts in England because he would be serving a substantial sentence in Ireland.
Mr Farrell added that his guilty plea was also of great assistance to gardaí because if it went to trial members of the Garda National Surveillance Unit would be called to give evidence and this would compromise their position in terms of doing undercover work in the future.
Counsel also told Judge O'Donnell that he was entitled to take into account that Motley would be serving his sentence in a foreign jail.
Stephen Ryan (40), from Skelmersdale, England, was jailed for six years last October after he pleaded guilty to the same offence.Mr Farrell asked Judge O'Donnell to take into consideration the penalty imposed on Ryan when sentencing Motley.