DETOX PLAN IS QUERIED BY JUDGE

A 32-year-old man who was questioned by Judge Flann Brennan about his commitment to getting off drugs has been given one further chance by the district court.

Darren Brady, 142 Cedarwood Park, Dundalk was before the court last week on a number of charges, including traffic offences, which had been adjourned for a probation service report.

Solicitor Conor MacGuill said the report ‘contains good and bad’ with concerns raised by the proabtion officer about Brady’s level of commitment to getting off drugs once and for all.

Mr MacGuill said Brady is working with his GP to reduce his intake of benzodiazapam. But Judge Brennan, who retired from Dundalk District Court last Tuesday, said he would not be ‘faced with defiance’, when the report stated the defendant doesn’t want to go into residential drugs treatment.

The judge said he wanted to hear from Brady and the defendant said: ‘Next year, I’m coming off methadone and also benzos and the GP told me not to come off them at the same time.

‘I’m on a benzo detox at the moment and then next year, it’s residential treatment. The St Francis Centre would accept me with open arms.

‘I want to get a handle on it and I am getting a handle on it. It is my intention to do it when the benzo detox is finished and I have already done six weeks and there are a further four or five weeks to go’.

In addition, Mr MacGuill said there had been no fresh charges set against his client in the meantime.

Judge Brennan wanted to know why Brady had not attended a number of appointments. ‘I never for a letter’, Brady told him. Judge Brennan said: ‘ There seems to be enormous number of letters that go missing from the Probation Service. I have been listening to this rubbish for the last 30 years’.

Brady said he would comply with the service in future. Judge Brennan said he would give Brady one further chance to comply and adjourned the matters to August 16.

He said: ‘ The up to date report better be much better than this one’.