A 25-YEAR-old woman will be sentenced tomorrow for smuggling a mobile phone internally into Mountjoy Prison.
Kirsty Doyle of East Wall, Dublin 3, pleaded guilty to bringing a prohibited item into the prison September 9, 2013.
Following her sentence hearing at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, Judge Martin Nolan remanded Doyle on bail overnight for sentencing at lunchtime.
Drug addiction
The court heard that Doyle was addicted to heroin and crack cocaine at the time and agreed to smuggle the phone into prison in exchange for €500.
She refused to tell gardaí who had asked her to do the delivery and for whom the phone was destined.
Garda Peter Twomey told Gerardine Small BL, prosecuting, that when Doyle walked into the prison screening area the metal detector device was activated.
Prison officers took her aside but she initially denied having anything on her that may have set off the detector.
However soon after she admitted that she had a package and handed over a small mobile phone wrapped in a condom which she removed from her underwear.
Doyle told gardaí she knew it was wrong but said she was homeless at the time and needed the money.
Doyle has 29 previous minor convictions for shoplifting, criminal damage, public order offences and common assault.
Enda Kilroy BL, defending, said Doyle wouldn’t say who she was bringing the phone to out of fear.
Doyle told gardaí on arrest that she had been on drugs and “quite strung out” when three men asked her to deliver the package inside her own body. She said she only accepted the job because she was on drugs.
Pawn in the game
Counsel said she had started taking drugs under the influence of a boyfriend who was serving a prison sentence at the time.
“She was a cog in the machine, a pawn in the game, and will not name the people involved due to fear,” said Kilroy.
He said his client underwent drug treatment and is now clean and hoping to turn her life around and complete a FETAC qualification.
The court heard that Doyle was witness to a shooting involving the Wilson family six years ago, after which her mother and siblings moved to Cork and she stayed in Dublin.
In 2009, her brother died of an overdose while her father died from throat cancer two weeks later.
She began to take drugs under the influence of a boyfriend and her addiction spiralled after she suffered a miscarriage. The court heard Doyle still owes a debt of €3,000 from her drug addiction.
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