Teenager who carried over half a million euro worth of cannabis into Ireland from America is jailed

By Sonya McLean

An English teenager who carried just over half a million euro worth of cannabis into Ireland from America has been jailed for three and half years.

Aaron Brock (19) who is from Manchester, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to having the drugs, 29.3 kg of cannabis worth an estimated €586,000, at Dublin Airport on July 9, 2023.

He had just come off a flight from Los Angeles.

He has no previous convictions.

Judge Martin Nolan said Brock had been under financial debt due to his own activities.

“Pressure was applied and he succumbed to that pressure,” he said.

He took into account Brock’s young age at the time.

He said sometimes young people do very stupid things and this “was a huge misjudgement”.

He said he didn’t believe Brock would re-offend in the future.

Judge Nolan jailed Brock for three and half years after noting that as an English national, he would doubt that he would have too many visitors in prison.

Garda Tanya Shinkins told Pieter Le Vert BL, prosecuting, that Brock told gardaí on arrest that he had run up a Stg£10,000 debt due to a gambling debt.

He said he was under threat to pay the money back and he was worried for his safety and that of his family.

Brock claimed he “had no other way out”.

Gda Shinkins said she believed Brock was due to hand over the drugs to someone in Dublin before returning home to Manchester.

Giollaíosa Ó Lideadha SC, defending, said his client accepts that it was a substantial amount of drugs.

He asked the court to take into account his very young age at the time, the fact that he has no previous convictions, he co-operated with the garda investigation and pleaded guilty at an early stage.