Man caught with drugs after he was removed from a taxi because he was intoxicated

By Eimear Dodd

A taxi driver had to ask gardaí at Dundrum Garda Station to help him remove an ‘intoxicated’ man from his taxi, a court has heard.

Craig Mooney (28) of Broadford Walk, Ballinteer, Dublin 16 pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to two counts of possession of a controlled drug for sale or supply.

He has 32 previous convictions, including for arson, road traffic offences and criminal damage.

Garda Kevin Kehoe told the court yesterday that he was on duty in the front office of Dundrum Garda Station at 9.10am on January 25 last when a taxi driver told him that he had a passenger in his vehicle that he could not wake up.

Gda Kehoe said he and a colleague accompanied the taxi driver to his car, which was parked on Eglinton Terrace nearby.

They identified Mooney and attempted to wake him up.

Gardaí then decided to remove Mooney from the taxi, at which point he became abusive and aggressive.

He was arrested and during a search, gardai found just over €725 worth of cocaine and 12 tablets of a benzodiazepine, each with a value of €20.

A search was carried out of Mooney’s residence at Broadford Park on February 2 last, during which gardaí discovered a bag of white powder in the kitchen, a Dunnes Stores bag containing three plastic bags and other items.

They recovered 2.3g of cocaine, valued at €149, from Mooney’s house, along with 145g of cannabis with a value of €2,914.

He was arrested, but nothing of evidential value was obtained during interview.

He has been in custody on this matter since February.

Gda Keogh agreed with defence counsel that the majority of Mooney’s previous convictions are for road traffic offences.

He also accepted that Mooney was handed a two-and-a-half-year sentence in November 2017 for arson and was released in 2019.

It was further accepted that Mooney also has a number of minor road traffic matters before the courts.

Defence counsel told the court that his client has already spent ten months in custody on this matter.

He said Mooney left school at 15 to work in the family business, but his conviction for arson ‘put an end to that’ as Mooney’s father had ‘no time for offending of that kind’.

He said his client has a history of drug use, and self-medicated with cannabis and benzodiazepines following a serious accident in 2021.

He said Mooney ‘got back on track’ last year, and started working after obtaining a safe pass.

He asked the court to take into consideration the early guilty plea and that his client has been drug-free while on remand.

Mooney is working as a cleaner and on an enhanced prisoner regime.

His instructions are that Mooney has a ‘prospect of returning to the family fold’ if he can ‘prove himself’.

His client intends to find work once he is released.

Judge Martin Nolan said that Mooney was ‘intoxicated’ in the taxi and became ‘obstreperous’ when gardaí attempted to wake him.

He noted Mooney’s history of conviction included a ‘serious’ count of arson, but that there was no relevant history of drug dealing.

He said the court’s view is that this offence is at the lower end of the scale and Mooney showed no trappings of wealth.

Taking the mitigating features into account, Judge Martin imposed an 18-month sentence backdated to last February.