SHANE Mason, 28, with an address at Sean Heuston Place, who is on remand to the Central Criminal Court, was sentenced at Limerick Circuit Court to three years in prison for the unlawful sale or supply of heroin in June 2008. Mason faced trial for the possession of almost €2,000 worth of the drug after gardai obtained a search warrant for a residence he was staying in at The Mews, Hartstonge Street.
After finding a small quantity of cannabis on his bedside locker, the court heard that the gardai continued their search outside the residence and found a small black package containing a brown substance stashed in a wall in the laneway beside the address. Testing later revealed it to be 9.297grams of heroin, worth €1,860.
The case for the State relied on the fingerprints of the accused found on the package, the court was told.
It was stated that Mason had an “extensive list of previous convictions,” and that he had a drug problem, but was “without the trappings of wealth” surrounding drugs.
Brian McInerney, counsel for the defence, said that Mason was a “minnow of the drug world, that swam into the court,” and sought leniency as he was on “remand to a higher court”.
Judge Carroll Moran said that the amount of drugs that Mason was caught with was “relatively small by comparison to other cases,” but that dealing in heroin as one of the “most insidious” of drugs was unacceptable.
“Heroin does huge harm in society,” added the Circuit Court Judge, and noting Mason’s “very bad record of over 160 previous convictions,” sentenced him to three years in prison.
