Man to serve eight months in jail after cannabis with street value of £1 million found in lorry
A Co Antrim lorry driver turned “trusted” drugs courier who admitted hauling almost 75 kilos of cannabis was ordered to serve eight months in jail today.
Also ordering Ciaran McAuley to serve a further eight months under supervised licence conditions, Judge Roseanne McCormick KC told the 26-year-old the “significant amount of cannabis” uncovered in his trailer “would have contributed to great harm in the community” and as such, merited “condign punishment.”
At an earlier hearing, McAuley, from Main Street in Glenariffe, entered a guilty plea to being concerned in the supply of class B cannabis, and summarising the case during her sentencing remarks today, Judge McCormick told the court how the charge arose from a joint PSNI and HMRC operation at Larne Harbour in the early hours of 30 November 2021.
His white Scania lorry had just disembarked in Larne from the Cairnryan ferry and when officers broke the metal seal and opened the trailer they discovered 75 vacuum packed packages of herbal cannabis in 15 separate boxes.
The total weight was 74.83 kilos and during previous court appearances, the PSNI said the haul had an estimated street value of around £1 million.
McAuley “denied any knowledge” of what was in the boxes and despite extensive forensic searches, neither his prints nor DNA was found to be on the boxes.
The judge said that according to McAuley’s initial account, the trailer had been loaded up, closed and the doors sealed at a firm in Rugby, England, and he denied any knowledge of the drugs.
He later admitted that “he had knowledge that the trailer he was towing would be used by others to transport drugs…he was paid to act as a courier…but he was not involved in the loading of the drugs.”
Judge McCormick said it was clear from the pre-sentence probation report that at the time, McAuley had been “experimenting with drugs” including cocaine so he had agreed to act as a courier to pay off a debt.
Since then, however, McAuley was now drug and debt free so while he had hauled a signifiant amount of cannabis, there was mitigation in the fact that he had entered guilty pleas, his work record and that he had rid himself of drugs.
In addition to the jail sentence, the judge also ordered the drugs to be destroyed.