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AN ICE-CREAM van driver who sold cocaine as well as ice-lollies to customers, has been jailed for four years with the final two years suspended.
Paul Collopy used his ice cream van as a cover for a major drugs distribution business, Limerick Circuit Court heard.
Collopy, (41), of Glenbrook, Bloodmill Road, Ballysimon, Limerick, started out in life earning money delivering coal from a horse and cart, the court heard.
He pleaded guilty at Limerick Circuit Court to possessing cocaine for sale or supply.
Collopy dropped a spoon and a weighing scales on the ground, outside his home, when gardaí swooped on the property on 25 November, 2014.
At the time, he was attempting to conceal a lunchbox, which contained cocaine, between the engine and bonnet of his van, the court heard.
Detective Garda David McGrath, Limerick Garda Divisional Drugs Unit, said Collopy was selling ice-cream from a fleet of vans in public parks and sporting venues around the city.
“He was effectively caught red-handed,” the detective said.
Gardaí discovered over €6,000 of cocaine under the hood of the van, and inside “a money bag”, which was located near a window where ice-creams and ice pops were sold to members of the public.
The money bag also included two “tick lists” containing the names of customers, “who owed money for drugs”.
A drugs invoice found in the van showed €45,000 of cocaine had been sold.
Gardaí also recovered €5,000 cash in Collopy’s house. Collopy, whose family have no criminal connections, had amassed 70 previous convictions.
He was jailed for five years in December 2007 of selling €17,000 of cocaine.
Three years after his release in 2011, he was caught by gardai in Ennis with €28,000 of heroin for which he received a four-year sentence, after the final two years of a six-year term was imposed.
Detective Garda McGrath described Collopy as a “chronic cocaine and crack cocaine addict”.
“My own opinion and the opinion of the divisional drugs squad would be that he is a drugs wholesaler rather than a street dealer,” the detective told the court previously.
“He would be giving the drugs to others to break down for street dealing,” he added.
The court heard Collopy, a father of three, was “selling drugs to break even,” adding that “he had a €200 a day drug habit”.
State prosecutor John O’Sullivan said Collopy had come from “a good family with no criminal connections”.
Outlining an insight into Collopy’s life, Mr O’Sullivan said: “He started sniffing glue aged ten. He started using other drugs in his teens.”
“He was working from the age of twelve drawing coal on a horse and cart, and later in his own pick-up truck,” he added.
The court heard Collopy was now drug-free, and had achieved music and cookery certificates while in prison on remand awaiting sentence.
Today’s sentence is to run consecutively to the four-year sentence imposed at Ennis Circuit Court last June.
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Get rid of that USC shite!
Absolutely! It was supposed to be “temporary!”
USC is 7% for the majority. Some pay nothing else. Tackle the marginal rates instead
Change street lights to LED.
Powerful sayings, don’t be getting ahead of yourself, do you think it’s just as simple as taking out the current lights and replacing them with leds? First off, we’ll have to set up a focus group so that everyone knows what we’re doing ‘going forward’. This focus group should comprise of retired/failed political cretins that have absolutely no background in engineering and probably couldn’t change the fuse in a plug. After several months of agreeing terms with an Led manufacturer in China, Enda decides it probably best instead to ude Denis o Brien’s led manufacturing plant, which he set up two weeks previous.
@Paul
Don’t forget the consultation with the Unions, and the claims that for Health and Safety reasons these new bulbs can’t be handled without proper preparation in the form of a % pay increase, a late start on a Monday and time to go to the Bank on Friday, a one off lump sum payment and finally, an allowance for new socks. Sure until that is all in place, it’ll be strikes and blackouts on the streets.
Dont we already have companies set up that could install the new lights. ESB and airtricity who already maintain the street lights!!!!
There’s a few crap ideas in that list , I have a few that would safe us about 150 million. No bonus for bankers. No pensions for politicians (pay for it yourselfs ya lazy sh.ts) retired or serving, no Irish water .
How would no bonuses for bankers save the Government money?
Maybe arrange for every Irish worker ‘donate’ a pint of blood every month at their place of work and sell it on the open market.
Here’s a good one – stop paying back the banking debt that wasn’t ours in the first place, instant saving of 9 billion a year.
Our banks were paid. That is now sovereign debt unfortunately. Lumped in with all our other sovereign debt.
You can ogra and f off with suggestions like that
Taxing drinking after midnight would be forever known as The Cinderella Tax. One of the more stupid ideas from FF.
If that’s the best Ogra FF have to offer, their parliamentary dinosaurs have little to fear from the FF young Turks, or should I say, cubs
A higher tax on alcohol will only serve to increase binge drinking- people will have an incentive to fill up on drink prior to midnight. To suggest anything else is not only stupid but goes against more or less every study carried out on licensing hours.
Well said. It would be a race against the clock – making sure you’re too pissed to want another drink after midnight. Just when you thought you’ve heard enough stupidity for one evening, FF come to the rescue.
If they put that levy on bottles & jam jars, I’ll be standing outside our local recycling place, 5 million to set up!! Ah well like father like son, as the saying goes….
Mee too. I remember being able to bring the empties down to the local shop. I earned my sweet money that way. Except for jam jars! My mother kept them to make jam!
Only problem then is that you have to be able to take them back, or to the recycle centre. I remember before they said we could put glass in the green bin, boxes of glass piling up and having to organise a lift to the recycle centre because all the local bottle banks disappeared.
It seems the ” young ff & fg ” are in line to wast tax payers money yet again, 5 million to set up people brining back bottles is ridiculous.
A gigantic tax on The Communication Clinic,inclusive of it’s husband and wife (PRONE to subterfuge) & their radio presenting son. Once spun for FF when Carr comm,now spinning for FG.
http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/how-the-leading-pr-firm-came-asunder-26428144.html
We could bulldoze aras an uachtarain and build social housing and affordable housing for thousands. The president can afford to pay for his own place with his salary.
So comments on the terry prone/tuam story have now been locked-no further comments allowed. I wonder how this could be. Interesting who the CC’s director has advised?
“advised clients ranging from Cabinet Ministers, the CEO’s and Chairmen of some of Ireland’s largest PLC’s through to members of the Catholic Heirarchy and CEO’s of global charities.”Communications clinic
@ James ya w..k.r…u must be the son of a lazy low life politician.
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