This pensioner who avoided jail after he was caught in possession of cannabis plants for the second time in 10 years today calls for the drug to be legalised.
And, speaking exclusively to Mirror, Richard Goldfrapp also insisted: “I am not a criminal.”
UK national Mr Goldfrapp, 73, spoke exclusively to us days after he walked free from a court in County Cork – despite admitting to be in possession of 40 cannabis plants at his isolated home last year.
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He was given a fully suspended three-year sentence by Judge Helen Boyle at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on Tuesday - but she did warn him he was running out of chances.
He was also given a three year suspended sentence in 2012 for possessing cannabis plants at his home and Judge Boyle told Mr Goldfrapp that he was facing a custodial sentence if he ever offends in this manner again.
However, speaking to the Mirror at his new home in Skibbereen, retired gardener Mr Goldfrapp said his days of cultivating cannabis were over.
“I am not going to defy the law,” Mr Goldfrapp said.
But he also insisted that the drug should be legalised -and said he was not harming anyone.
He said: “I think it should be legalised.
“It is not right to criminalise young people.
“Young people are adventurous at that age – they will try any kind of buzz or high.
“It drives them into the hands of dealers who are unscrupulous, a lot of them, because they will offer something else besides.
“I don’t have any animosity towards the gardai or the judiciary – I just think it’s a bad law and they know it’s a bad law.
“They don’t change it because it would imply that they are wrong.”
Gardai called to his former home in Kilcoe – around 15 kms outside Skibbereen – last June with a search warrant.
He said they searched the area and he actually pointed out the cannabis plants to them.
Mr Cornwall, who came to Cork from his native Cornwal 25 years ago to work as a gardener, said: “They were very easy going and I was very easy going with them.
“They just came with a search warrant and searched. They couldn’t see any and they asked me if I had any and I said ‘yes, I do’ because I believe you should stand up for what you believe in.”
And, despite pleading guilty, he did not believe he had done anything wrong.
He said: “It’s not harming anybody else – what concern is it to them?
“I am not a criminal per se.
“I don’t see that I have committed any crime because I have not affected any person or property.
“It is a naturally growing herb, it is just that people have taken advantage of it because of certain properties to make money out of it.
“I never grew it for money, I never dealt it – it was just purely for my own use.
“A lot of it was for pain because a lot of prescription drugs which I have tried have side effects and don’t particularly work, especially if you suffer from depression.”
Mr Goldfrapp told us he had been convicted of the same possession offence for growing his own cannabis plants at his former home outside Skibbereen in west Cork in 2012 – but he was unrepentant over his crimes.
“It should be legalised – but policed,” he said.
And when asked if cannabis could be considered a gateway to more serious drugs, he replied: “Well, so can alcohol.
“Young people don’t have a recourse that is legal, they have to go on the black market so then they are exploited.”
When asked if he would now stop cultivating cannabis, he replied: “Yeah of course. I mean, I can get it on the black market – it’s just that it costs money.
“I am not going to defy the law.”
“I am really concerned that they should change the law to actually protect young people and stop this criminalisation.”
Dt Garda Andrew Manning told Cork Circuit Criminal Court on Tuesday that he went to the home of the 73-year-old, who lives in a remote area, on June 11, 2021, with a search warrant.
Det Garda Manning discovered the forty cannabis plants in pots. He said that it was accepted that the UK national, who has lived in Ireland for over four decades, was growing the plants for his own use. Mr Goldfrapp had previously pleaded guilty to a possession charge.
Judge Helen Boyle was told that there was no suggestion that the elderly man was supplying the cannabis to anyone in the area.
Det Garda Manning said that the plants were immature and would possibly not have reached their full potential because they were being grown in an unsophisticated manner.
Donal O’Sullivan, defence barrister, said his client had taken four urinalysis tests prior to his court appearance which had all shown him to be clear of drugs. He explained that the possibility of receiving a custodial sentence had “jolted him (Goldfrapp) to a sense of reality.”
He stressed that his client wanted to emphasise that Dt Garda Manning was extremely “polite” in his dealings with him. Det Garda Manning replied that Goldfrapp “was a nice man to deal with” and that he had co-operated fully with the garda investigation into the case.
Judge Boyle said her one hesitation in relation to sentencing related to the fact that Goldfrapp previously received a suspended sentence for exactly the same offence.
She jailed him for three years suspending the entirety of the sentence.
However, she warned the pensioner that he was running out of chances. She told him that he was facing a custodial sentence if he ever offends in this manner again.
Judge Boyle added that the law did not allow for the growing of cannabis, even if Goldfrapp had an “off grid” lifestyle living in a remote part of the country.
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