A retired Garda Superintendent has been jailed for six-and-a-half years after he was caught with just over €259,000 worth of cannabis.
The court heard 62-year-old John Murphy, who served at Raheny Garda Station, had built up significant debts through bad business decisions.
On the back of a tip-off, gardai searched John Murphy’s home on the 29th of September last year.
They found vacuum packed bags of cannabis in the walk-in wardrobe of the master bedroom, in an outside coal bunker and in a red suitcase in the back of his car.
The seized cannabis weighed almost 13 kilos in total and had a street value of just over €259,000.
Murphy made full admissions and pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.
At his sentence hearing today, Judge Martin Nolan was told he retired in 2010 with forty years of service to State.
On foot of bad business decisions, which included spending €300,000 on taxi plates just before the industry was deregulated, the court heard he got into financial difficulty and owed €855,000 to various financial institutions and loved ones.
As a former guard, Judge Nolan told him he should have known better than to involve himself in such criminality. He jailed him for 6.5 years.
Retired Garda Superintendent, John Murphy (62), jailed for 6.5 years after being caught with almost €260,000 worth of cannabis in his Dublin 3 home and the back of his car just over a year ago.
— Frank Greaney (@FrankGreaney) October 4, 2022
A Retired Garda Superintendent has been handed 6.5 years after he was caught with over €259,000 of cannabis.
Min Helen McEntee says the case shows Gardaí “aren’t afraid to investigate their own” and it doesn’t matter who you work for there are consequences to breaking the law pic.twitter.com/c2YWHCO5LP— Mairéad Cleary (@maireadcleary7) October 4, 2022
Reporting by Frank Greaney
