An English woman who smuggled heroin valued at more than €350,000 from London for a drugs syndicate has been jailed for six years by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Cheryl Sharpe (34), a prostitute, also sampled the heroin which the syndicate was buying in the Holiday Inn at King's Cross in London. Two of the gang shadowed her while she travelled to London.
Judge Frank O'Donnell said while this was a serious offence and while Sharpe had attempted to import heroin into prison, he would not give her the mandatory minimum 10-year sentence. Due to mitigating factors, including her early guilty plea, he felt the appropriate sentence was six years, with the final two suspended.
Sharpe, from Huddersfield, England, has lived and worked as a prostitute in Dublin for 13 years.
She developed a £300-a-day heroin addiction after being advised to try it to ease the pain following a stillbirth about six years ago, and was to be given 1oz of the drug as her fee for acting as a courier on the London-Dublin run when she was caught.