Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
DANIEL FAN JAILED FOR 7YRS OVER COKE SUPPLY
Beauty helped run extraction factory
A YOUNG Daniel O’donnell superfan has been jailed for seven years over her involvement in a cocaine extraction factory.
Molly Kate Sloyan was sentenced to 10 years in prison with the final three suspended yesterday.
The 25-year-old was charged one year after a video of her in the audience of RTE’S The Late Late Show for a Valentine’s Day special went viral.
Daniel O’donnell invited his besotted fan to his concert in August 2016 and she even got to dance with the singer.
Sloyan appeared before Cork Circuit Criminal Court on charges arising from a raid on a cocaine extraction factory outside Bantry in West Cork last year.
Judge Sean O Donnabhain heard from Det Sgt Joanne O’brien that cocaine was chemically implanted in clothing and fabric in South America.
Ms Sloyan, who lived in Kinsale until 2015, appeared for sentencing in relation to the drugs bust. She looked visibly shocked and there were gasps from a relative in the public gallery when Judge O Donnabhain said she had been involved in a level of criminality that merited a 10-year custodial sentence.
Her co-accused in the case were Dean Gilsenan, 27, and his 51-year-old father William Gilsenan, 51, with an address in Clondalkin, West Dublin.
Also accused was 37-year-old Sean Mcmanus, of Burrowfield Road, Baldoyle, North Dublin.
All were charged with possession of drugs and possession for supply on November 28, 2017, at Seascape House, Dromleigh, Bantry, Co Cork.
The court heard Sloyan was involved in a relationship with Mcmanus leading her to a level of criminality for which she had no previous record.
Elizabeth O’connell, representing Sloyan, said her client worked in an Irish bar in Benidorm and had met Mcmanus at a promotional night in a pub.
The judge added she had played “a significant role in the organisation and setting up” of the operation at this end. He said without her role the operation wouldn’t have taken place.
All four accused pleaded guilty.
Sgt Joanne O’brien told the court the house in Bantry had been under surveillance. When gardai entered the premises last November they found cocaine with a street value of £51,000.
Fabric was recovered from the house which had been sent from South America and was steeped in cocaine.
The property in Bantry was being used as a base to remove the drug using the solvent isopropanol. Mcmanus sent a video to his girlfriend Sloyan detailing how to remove the drug from the material.
Masks, weighing scales and gloves were also recovered. The court heard Sloyan was involved in the hiring of the house in West Cork and had also secured the isopropanol. No indication was given as to whether she was going to financially profit from the enterprise.
Judge O Donnabhain said the former bar worker knew exactly what she was getting into when she got involved in the operation. He told the court: “To say she was the girlfriend of Sean Mcmanus does not do justice to the criminality involved.
“She fully knew what was going on. She was fully involved at a significant level from early on and without her co-operation this may not have succeeded.”
The judge jailed her for 10 years suspending the last three years.