This is one for ‘Ripley’s believe it or not’.

There is a very interesting story in the Irish Examiner today written by Ruaidhri Giblin. It concerns Perry Wharrie who many of you will remember was convicted of trying to import €440 million worth of cocaine into Ireland through West Cork in 2007. He and his buddies were only caught after they put diesel into a petrol engine on their rib which then broke down and capsized in rough seas and spilled their load into the sea while they were trying to come ashore in Dunlough Bay.

Mr. Wharrie had pleaded not guilty but was convicted by a jury and sentenced to thirty years in prison in 2008. This wasn’t his first brush with the law because he was previously sentenced to life imprisonment in England in 1989 for his part in an armed robbery in which an off duty policeman was shot and killed. He was left out on parole in 2006 and a year later, we now know, he was back to his old ways.

Mr. Wharrie has appealed his thirty year sentence to the Court of Criminal Appeal and has had it reduced to seventeen and a half years. Mr. Justice Hunt said that the sentencing judge had made a mistake because he didn’t give any credit to Wharrie for “refraining from giving false evidence at his trial”.

So here we have a serious criminal who gets a life sentence for being part of an armed robbery where an off duty policeman is shot and killed. He gets out on parole and almost immediately gets caught bringing 1.5 tonnes of cocaine into Ireland. He rightfully gets thirty years for that and then Mr. Justice Tony Hunt and his colleagues reduce it to seventeen and a half years because he ‘refrained from giving false evidence at his trial’.

I’m finding it very difficult to get my head around this but Mr. Wharrie who ‘refrained from giving false evidence at his trial’ must be having a right good laugh.