SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing, Lord Harrower said: 

"Robert O’Hara, you have pled guilty (by way of a section 76 indictment) to a charge of directing various persons involved in serious and organised crime to commit a number of serious offences, contrary to section 30(1)(a) of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010.

You are 47 years of age. You have 10 previous convictions.  Some of these are for road traffic offences.  Others are for assault, attempted murder and, in 2005, for murder, for which you are currently serving a life sentence, the punishment part of which expired on 25 August 2024.  Only last year, on 30 September, you were convicted once again of assault to injury.

You have accepted directing various persons involved in serious and organised crime to commit a number of serious offences. The full extent of that direction was explained to the court today. The offence was committed over a period of approximately two years and nine months between 13 September 2018 and 28 May 2021 from within the prisons of Addiewell and then Low Moss, while you were serving your life sentence. 

In terms of the charge on the indictment to which you have pled guilty, you accept directing others in the sale and supply of controlled drugs; the collection of sums of money associated with the sale and supply of controlled drugs; and the acquisition, use, possession and concealment of criminal property, including high value luxury goods, such as watches and jewellery, motor vehicles such as a Lamborghini, and high value residential properties.  Many of these goods were acquired in order to facilitate the extravagant lifestyles of your long-term partner and your daughter.  You were looking at properties worth between £500,000 and £1,000,000 with a view to acquiring a home for you and your family on your release from prison.   

In determining sentence I am first required to assess the seriousness of the offence. In the circumstances I have narrated, the offence to which you have pled guilty is one of the utmost seriousness, involving a very high degree of criminality.  Factors such as operating in an organised crime group, for financial gain, and attempting to conceal evidence might, in the context of a different offence, be regarded as aggravating factors.  Here, however, they are constituent elements of the offence itself, and I will sentence you on that basis.

I have had regard to all that has been said today on your behalf by Mr Findlay KC, but while you have been candid as to your role, there is nothing which can be fairly categorised as mitigating.  I take full account of your wish to resolve matters, to “draw a line in the sand”, as Mr Findlay put it, and offer a plea of guilty at this stage, and I take that into account in what follows.

The gravity of the charge to which you have pled guilty is such that there is no method of dealing with you other than by the imposition of a significant custodial sentence.  The maximum sentence open to the court for a contravention of section 30 of the 2010 Act is one of 14 years’ imprisonment.  The values of the criminal property referred to in the narrative are, on any view, very substantial, but provide only glimpses or snapshots of what was involved.  Any attempt, on the basis of these figures, to work out what the operation was worth would be little more than guesswork.   In the circumstances, I proceed on the basis that this was a major operation, and that the extent of the criminality to which you have pled guilty requires a custodial sentence at the upper end of that available to the court. But for the timing of your plea, I would have sentenced you to a period of 12 years’ imprisonment.

However, I am required by law to give you credit for your plea of guilty, that is to recognise the utilitarian value such a plea has to the administration of justice.  You appeared on a warrant at Glasgow Sheriff Court on 27 September 2023, when you made no plea.  You were committed for further examination and granted bail on standard conditions.  The narrative records that, following a meeting between your senior counsel and the Advocate Depute on 19 August 2024, it became clear that there was a prospect of the case resolving by way of a guilty plea, but that there was much to finalise.  The evidence was complex.  On 8 January 2025, the Crown sent senior counsel a draft charge and narrative.  Agreement was reached and a s76 letter sent on 16 January 2025.   Whilst a lengthy trial has been avoided by your plea, many of the witnesses in such a trial would have been police officers. I fully accept that since August of last year, your counsel has been engaged in fruitful discussions with the Crown regarding the terms of your plea.  I also accept that there were other individuals involved in the operation from whose cases the extent of your involvement required to be separated.  Having regard to all these considerations, I will discount the headline sentence by 25%, which reduces it to one of 9 years’ imprisonment, beginning from today."