The father of a Welshman jailed for more than 10 years last week for trafficking cannabis has spoken out, decrying the “incredibly harsh” sentence which “does not fit the crime”.
He deserves to be punished but does he really deserve 10 years of his life to be taken away?
“What my son did was against the law and wrong – he deserved to be punished,” said Mel Holmes, “but we expected him to receive a sentence in line with the severity of his crime. Instead, he’s been locked up for more than a decade.”
He compared his son’s case to the recent controversy surrounding a 21-year-old man found guilty of having run over twin girls while driving without a licence.
“That young man was sentenced to two years while my son got nearly 11. I don’t want to target Maltese laws – we get similar things happening in the UK – but how is that fair?”
In June 2006, the police arrested Daniel Holmes and charged him with cannabis possession and trafficking following the discovery of a number of cannabis plants at his Għajnsielem apartment, which had a room dedicated to the plant’s cultivation.
Over five years later, Mr Holmes was brought to court and given a choice: he could either plead guilty and hope for the judge’s clemency, or plead not guilty, face a jury and risk spending much of the rest of his life in prison.
Mr Holmes, who had since gotten engaged, has a three-month-old daughter and found steady employment as a chef in Qawra, pleaded guilty.
His lawyer argued in court that he grew the drug to fuel his heavy addiction to it and had since reformed. The prosecution held that sachets of cannabis found by the police were evidence he was selling the drug.
Mr Holmes was sentenced to 10-and-a-half years in prison as well as a €23,000 fine, to be converted to a further year of incarceration if unable to pay the fine.
Daniel’s father, Mel, was shocked. “It’s appalling, especially when compared to the sentences handed out for other crimes”.
Mr Holmes’s sentence, which he intends to appeal, stands in contrast to some other recent ones.
Earlier this month, for example, a Maltese man with over 30 criminal convictions, found guilty of possessing and dealing in cocaine and heroin, was sentenced to five years and fined €3,000. He was found in possession of 38 grammas of heroin and cocaine.
Last June, a Romanian man who admitted to importing over one kilogram of cocaine received a sentence very similar to that of Mr Holmes, with 11 years in jail and a €23,000 fine.
Last October, Magistrate Francesco Depasquale told a reformed man sentenced to nine months for trafficking in cannabis that his hands were tied by the law when it came to jailing him.
Calls for a revision of Malta’s drug laws have grown over the past year. Malta’s President, George Abela, waded into the debate last July, saying that prison was not necessarily the best way to deal with drug users who posed no risk to society. He also called for a national conference to discuss how best to deal with drug abuse victims.
Under Chapter 101 of Malta’s criminal code, anyone found guilty of cultivating or trafficking cannabis is liable to between four and 30 years in prison and a fine of between €2,329.37 and €116,468.67.
His voice cracking under the strain, Mr Holmes’s father spoke of a son who had fallen in with the wrong crowd.
“Daniel was Britain’s youngest-ever PADI master scuba diver when he qualified, and he was an instructor by the time he was 18. He then trained and worked as a chef, and he thought Malta would be the ideal place to combine both passions.”
The sentence has attracted considerable sympathy online, with several comments at timesofmalta.com calling it “madness” and comparing it to other criminal cases where the accused got off with much lighter sentences (see box).
In the wake of the ruling, a “Free Daniel Holmes” Facebook group also sprouted up. The group’s creator, who asked to remain anonymous, said that he didn’t know Mr Holmes but had felt “outraged” when he read of the sentence in The Times.
“It took me two minutes to create the page, and within an hour over 100 people had already liked the page,” he said.
“I don’t know the guy, but I feel sorry for him and others like him who are being punished by our outdated cannabis laws”.
The interminable wait for the judgement meant that, when it arrived, Mr Holmes was grateful that there was a degree of finality. “He was relieved, more than anything else. Five and a half years had passed since he was arrested, and the court case hung over his head like a sword,” Mel Holmes said.
Struggling to maintain his composure, Mr Holmes’s father spoke candidly. “Daniel’s turned his life around. He knows he’s made a mistake and deserves to be punished, but does he really deserve 10 years of his life to taken away?”
Mr Holmes will be appealing the sentence and hoping for the leniency Judge Lawrence Quintano denied him, his father said.
Two weights, two measures?
November 2011 – A man who stabbed another man seven times is jailed for four years
October 2011 – A man is given a five-year sentence for having repeatedly defiled his nine-year-old daughter
July 2011 – A young man who mowed down twin girls while driving recklessly and without a licence receives a two year prison sentence, the maximum allowed by law.
June 2011 – Two paedophile priests are sentenced to five and six years respectively for having defiled a number of teenage boys in their care.
September 2010 – A man with 28 criminal convictions is found guilty of beating and stabbing his girlfriend, and jailed for just over four years.
November 2009 – A man found guilty of raping his seven-year-old niece is given a 10-year prison sentence.
February 2009 – A couple found guilty of having beaten their children with belts and burnt them with cigarettes are given six-month sentences. The sentences are increased, to 14 months, on appeal.