A Dublin youth, who tried to smuggle drugs hidden inside Kinder eggs into Mountjoy Prison when he was visiting relatives, has been given a six-month sentence.
The 17-year-old kept the "eggs", which contained cannabis and tablets, between his buttock cheeks but was detected during a random search, the Dublin Children's Court had heard.
Judge John O'Connor had given the teenager several chances to co-operate with the Probation Service and the youth had been ordered to go to drug abuse treatment and to an educational course.
However, the latest probation report on the youth, who was accompanied to his hearing by his parents and his lawyer, was found to be negative and Judge O'Connor decided to finalise the case with a custodial sentence.
The teen had pleaded guilty to conveying drugs into a prison in connection with the seizure on October 31, 2012.
Garda Sheryl Wolfe had told Judge O'Connor that she had been called to the jail and told by prison officers that drugs had been found on the youth.
The juvenile court heard the teenager, “had a package between the cheeks of his buttocks” and when searched he removed it willingly.
The package was wrapped in cellophane and contained two Kinder eggs; 229 contraband tablets were found inside one of them while the other contained a quantity of cannabis.
She had told the court that the cannabis was worth €113 and the tablets had a street value of €458.
Gda Wolfe had agreed that the boy was co-operative on arrest; the defence had said the teenager had been visiting two relatives in prison at the time.
The teenager had also pleaded guilty to assaulting a staff member at a juvenile detention centre, in January, 2012.
He had 13 prior criminal convictions mostly for robberies as well as others for criminal damage, theft and possessing a flick-knife.
Last year he was put on probation for a criminal damage offence but he had previously received custodial sentences for earlier crimes.
Atg a previous stage, the court had been told the boy has relatives in prison and he does not want to go down the same path but he had been warned by the judge earlier that he was facing a "high risk" of getting a detention sentence unless he proved that he would co-operate with the Probation Service which was trying to help him to address his offending.
SOURCE-IRISH NEWS
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