Man jailed after meth and shotgun found in car with wrong plates

A Napier man with a history of drugs involvement and caught in a suspect car which also carried a loaded sawn-off shotgun was sentenced to four years' jail.

Grant Carpenter, 35, appeared before Judge Tony Adeane in Napier District Court last week for sentence on one charge of possessing methamphetamine for supply and one of unlawful possession of a firearm.

A co-offender, 29-year-old Jamie Boorsboom, was sentenced in July to three years and three months jail after admitting charges of possessing methamphetamine supply, possession of the drug known as fantasy, along with an unrelated representative charge of using a stolen credit card on a shopping spree north of Auckland.

The drugs and firearm charge followed a police search of a suspicious vehicle in Hastings early on the morning of March 31.

Both Carpenter and Boorsboom were in the car, which did not fit the registration plates it carried. When police noticed a syringe on the floor they carried out a search under the Misuse of Drugs Act and found 70g of apparently recently-manufactured pink crystalline, including 6.5g in one bag and more in smaller amounts.

During a search at a police station soon afterwards police also found a bundle of $20 notes totalling $580 in Carpenter's underwear, but yesterday Judge Adeane declined a Crown application for the forfeiture of the cash, the Judge accepting defence counsel Jonathan Krebs' submission it had come from legitimate sources.