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1. This is an application for leave to appeal against a custody probation order, consisting of three years’ imprisonment, to be followed by two years’ probation, imposed by McLaughlin J at Belfast Crown Court on 12 January 2001. The applicant originally pleaded not guilty to the four charges on the indictment, one of manslaughter and three of supplying a controlled Class A drug. The trial ran for some days, then was aborted on the illness of the judge. The Crown decided not to proceed on the manslaughter charge in count 1 on the indictment, and the applicant was re-arraigned and pleaded guilty to the three drugs charges in counts 2, 3 and 4. Leave to appeal was refused by the single judge.

2. The applicant had been a registered heroin addict since 1996. On 13 February 1999 he received a prescription for 500 ml of liquid methadone, a heroin substitute used in the treatment of heroin addiction. He had the prescription made up and brought the drug to a public house where he had been drinking for much of the day with Robert Heaney and James McMaster. He called McMaster into the toilets and offered him a drink of the methadone. McMaster, who denied that he knew what the substance was, stated that he did not like the taste and spat most of it out. Later that evening the applicant asked Heaney and one Keith Cardy to come into the toilets, where he offered Cardy a drink from the bottle of methadone. He had on a previous occasion offered to sell Cardy a bottle of methadone for £15.00, but the latter had refused to buy it. Cardy tasted it, but did not like it and gave the bottle back to the applicant, then returned to the bar, leaving Heaney and the applicant in the toilets. According to Cardy, the applicant told him later that he gave Heaney some methadone to drink.

3. At a later stage of the evening Heaney complained of feeling ill, vomited and fell asleep. Cardy took him home about 11.30 pm and left him, apparently sleeping, on the settee. The next morning he was found dead, lying on the settee. Dr Cowan, who arrived at 10.30 am, expressed the view that he had been dead about five hours. The pathologist found on post mortem examination that the cause of death was methadone intoxication combined with alcohol. The concentration of methadone in Heaney’s blood was 0.43 micrograms per ml, a level which lay within the range at which fatal intoxication may occur. In addition the concentration of alcohol in his blood was 154 mg per 100 ml, which in the pathologist’s opinion expressed in his report would have added to the depressant effect of the methadone on the brain, contributing to the death. It appears, however, that the Crown subsequently accepted that the supply and use of methadone did not cause or contribute to the death of Mr Heaney and the judge accepted the applicant’s plea of guilty to the charges of supplying the drug on that basis.

4. The applicant has a previous record, stated by the judge to include criminal damage, indecent exposure, disorderly behaviour, robbery, burglary, handling, assaults and theft. None of the convictions, however, was for a drug-related offence. The pre-sentence report set out in detail the substantial negative influences in the applicant’s life and summarised the probation officer’s view of him as follows:

5. The learned trial judge described the applicant’s attitude to the offences as “casual and wholly irresponsible”, but accepted that he had exhibited genuine remorse over Heaney’s death and had made real progress in prison towards overcoming his heroin addiction. He agreed with the probation officer that supervision after the applicant’s release from prison would be of importance, and so was minded, rightly in our view, to make a custody probation order. He specified that the sentence which he would otherwise have imposed would have been one of four years. He made an order for three years’ custody, followed by two years’ probation.

6. Mr Cushinan QC stressed on behalf of the applicant that the transaction in question was not a commercial one, nor was it part of a course of conduct on his part which had to be stopped. He further submitted that although the drug problem in Northern Ireland is of serious proportions, there is no evidence that supplying methadone has become a pressing issue in this jurisdiction. He submitted that an equivalent sentence of four years was manifestly excessive for the quality of the act, was not required in order to deter the commission of similar offences by others and was out of line with sentences imposed in a number of comparable cases which he cited. Mr SG McCrudden for the Crown submitted that the judge did not err in principle and pointed out that the offence concerned a very dangerous drug which was far removed from the category of “recreational” drugs. He contended that a serious factor was that it was not supplied to addicts or regular users but to persons with no drug habit, with knowledge on the part of the applicant that it gave a “high” not dissimilar to that of the heroin for which it was a substitute.

7. We do not consider that we can derive much guidance from the reported cases, but we are satisfied from those which bear some approximation to the present case that the trend in cases of supplying methadone has been to impose rather lower sentences than four years’ imprisonment. We have borne in mind the length of the two consecutive sentences, each of four years, imposed by the English Court of Appeal in A-G’s Reference No 5 of 1995 (Johnson) (1995) The Times, 22 May, but consider that that was such a serious case of recklessness that it is not comparable.

8. In our opinion there appears to be some hope of redemption of this applicant from his previous drug-taking lifestyle and a sentence equivalent to four years is not required to achieve that end or to deter him or others from committing similar offences. We bear in mind that this was not a transaction for profit, but the product of drunken irresponsibility. We have come to the conclusion that the requirements of the public interest could have been met, on a plea of guilty, albeit rather belated, by an equivalent sentence of three years’ imprisonment. We therefore propose to substitute a custody probation order consisting of two years’ imprisonment, to be followed by one year’s probation. We shall grant leave to appeal, allow the appeal and order accordingly.