A man has been jailed for four years for transporting, from Northern Ireland to Birdhill, drugs worth €240,000. Trevor Cobbett, (38), was caught by gardai driving a car near Castleconnell with two sealed cardboard boxes on board filled with cannabis. Following his arrest in May 2010, Mr Cobbett lost his job as a manager for a logistics cargo company, and had, according to his defence counsel, “brought a tragedy on his family”.
Asked by gardai, how he felt after he had been arrested, the married father of two from Sandymount Close, Lisburn, Co Antrim, replied: “I felt worthless. Like I’d fallen into a big hole.”
At Limerick Circuit Court, Judge Carroll Moran was told the accused had “prevailed over difficulties thrown at him in life,” including recovering from cancer in 2008.
Mr Cobbett told gardai he was to be paid €250 to transport the drugs from the north.
Gardai said they accepted Mr Cobbett was a courier for other parties and did not know the destination of the drugs or who owned them.
The accused, who was facing a prescriptive mandatory minimum 10-year prison term, told gardai, he didn’t know what was in the boxes.
Judge Moran said it would have been “unjust” to impose the 10-year minimum sentence because, Mr Cobbett was not the owner of the drugs, he had pleaded guilty, and had cooperated with gardai.
