Liam Dunne, 39, of Liverpool, was jailed for 12 years at Douglas Courthouse for his part in landing cannabis on the Isle of Man.[1][2][3] He pleaded guilty to being concerned in importing heroin, cannabis and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and to participating in a criminal organisation.[1] Deemster Graeme Cook said Dunne made the arrangements and got others to do his dirty work.[1] Isle of Man Today reported the term as six years for the heroin offence, four years for the cannabis offence and two years for the criminal organisation, consecutively, with a further year for the THC offence concurrently.[2]

The cannabis was the same 15.5 kg shipment for which five Isle of Man men were sentenced on Wednesday 22 January 2025.[4] Jamie Smith, 37, described in court as the senior player on the island, was jailed for five years.[4] Ashley Harrison, 36, was jailed for three years and 11 months, John Skillen, 44, for three years and nine months, and Jordan Corkill, 27, for three years and six months.[4] Jordan Halligan-Bunce, 21, was given 21 months suspended for two years after he was found guilty at trial of producing cannabis.[4][5][6][7]

At about 9.45pm on 17 November 2023, police watched Skillen collect a holdall from the crew as the fishing boat Boy Shayne moored at Battery Pier in Douglas.[4] The holdall held about 15.5 kg of cannabis that police valued at £310,000, along with 98 cannabis vapes worth more than £3,000.[4] Dunne had driven a black holdall with the drugs and vapes to Whitehaven in Cumbria for the crew to collect.[1] The BBC’s account of his sentence names the boat Boy Shane and describes the cannabis plot as up to £309,000, with 98 THC vapes.[1] Smith had offered Skillen £2,000 to use the boat, and the plan to land the drugs by rigid inflatable boat at Laxey Bay failed when Halligan-Bunce ran it aground at Castletown.[4]

Dunne was arrested on 17 August 2025 as he returned from Spain, where he had been living for eight months.[1] The Isle of Man Constabulary treated the landing as part of Operation Vineyard.[8] Detective Inspector Jamie Tomlinson said police would bring UK offenders to the island to face justice.[9]

The same BBC account describes a heroin parcel for which Shaun Milligan was jailed for 11 years and Frank Harrison for seven years in February 2024.[1] That heroin is not counted in the cannabis weight. The £310,000 figure is the police valuation of the holdall at the 2025 hearing, not the later estimates of up to £309,000 or £300,000.[1][4][2]