'Significant' drug dealer jailed for 12 years
A drug dealer caught with heroin valued €750,000 has been jailed for 12 years by Judge Michael White at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
James Bowes (aged 42), River Forest, Leixlip was convicted earlier by a jury in a retrial on the same charge of possession of five kilograms of heroin for sale or supply on April 3, 2000.
Bowes said in court that he wanted to put it on record that he was set up by the gardaí who were only interested in him acting as an informer. He said the way he was dealt with was "unfair, unjust and repugnant" to justice in this country.
Bowes was originally jailed for 12 years on this charge on July 23, 2003 by Judge Frank O’Donnell who told him then that the jury was not fooled by his "cock and bull story". He directed then that Bowes serve the 12 years consecutive to a five-year term he was serving then.
The 12-year term was overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal which ordered the retrial which was presided over by Judge White.
Judge White, who backdated the sentence to February 1, 2004 and suspended the final two years, told Bowes he was caught red-handed with the drugs and had to pay the penalty.
Bowes had also addressed the court in 2003 and said he felt victimised as he had instructed his counsel to have the car he was stopped in mechanically and forensically examined but the gardaí did not have it any more.
He said his evidence all along had been that he was taking the car to get the brakes fixed and if the car had been properly examined, he felt he would have been acquitted by the jury.
Detective Garda Philip Collis of the National Drugs Unit told prosecuting counsel, Mr Garnet Orange BL, that gardaí stopped Bowes’ in the car in heavy traffic on James St, Dublin 8 after receiving confidential information.
Six packages of brown powder and a weighing scales were found in the boot of his grey Honda car and five of them were found to contain heroin.
Det Gda Collins said Bowes was asked if he had any more drugs in the car and he replied: "No, just the gear in the boot". A receipt was found in the pocket of a green jacket in the front of the car which showed that the weighing scales was bought on the previous day at Argos.
Bowes told the gardaí that he had been given keys to the Honda and told to drive it to the car park in Thomas Street. He also said he had only put "a load of washing" into the car that day.
He said he was told to leave the keys in it and he would get a call later to pick it up again and drive it to the city centre where he to get another call to tell him where to leave it finally.
Det Garda Collins told the jury that in his experience as a garda the purity of an average street would be 11% heroin but the purity of the heroin found in Bowes car went from 56% to 63%.
Bowes also told gardaí he realised they were just doing their job and had gotten "a good result" but added that "it’s not over until the fat lady sings".
Bowes in direct evidence to the jury said the car belonged to "a friend of a friend" and he was taking it to get the brakes fixed.
When jailed for five years in June 2000 for heroin trafficking, Bowes was described by Detective Garda Eamonn O'Loughlin as "a significant player" in the illegal drugs trade in Dublin. The jury took one hour to convict him.
He told Judge Patrick McCartan in that case that he wasn't a drug dealer and never had been but he couldn't understand how the heroin came to be in the pocket of a tracksuit bottom he was wearing in his parents' house on January 4, 1999.
Det Garda O’Loughlin also revealed at the June 2000 hearing that gardaí found a document relating to an illegal Dutch money laundering operation when they searched Bowes.
Bowes, represented himself in the 2000 case after he sacked his legal team following the first day of that trial.
Judge McCartan told Bowes that the jury rightly disbelieved his contention regarding the heroin found in his pocket and could not be criticised for convicting him.
He said Bowes sacked his defence team after being caught by surprise when the court ruled against him on a legal technical point.
Bowes, after sacking his counsel in the 2000 case, read a typed prepared statement to the court in which he claimed his former legal team "had sacked themselves" because they wouldn't follow his instructions.
