Two New Zealanders jailed for 24 years for plotting to ship 500kg of cocaine into Australia had their sentences decided by a judge who was suffering from sleep apnoea.
"Sir" Thomas Graham Fry and Hamish Edmond Thompson were jailed after cocaine with an estimated street value of up to A$268 million ($284.3 million) was seized from the yacht Ngaire Wha off the New South Wales coast on February 1, 2000.
The pair were with another man on the yacht, which had sailed from New Zealand.
Cases in which Judge Ian Dodd presided over a four-year period have been gaining publicity in Australia after complaints that he drifted off to sleep during at least nine of them.
The Daily Telegraph newspaper yesterday alleged that the judge slept through much of the seven-month trial of seven men, including Fry and Thompson.
His sleepiness came to light in March when NSW District Court Chief Justice Reg Blanch revealed four complaints had been made to the Judicial Commission.
The Telegraph quoted a legal source who said it was "not a secret" that Judge Dodd often slept through the cocaine trial.
A fellow accused of the New Zealanders, Robert Angelo Roberti, is considering appealing on the grounds the judge slept during the trial.
Fry and Thompson were granted the right to retrials, but the Supreme Court said yesterday the hearings had not been held.
Fry's lawyer did not return calls from NZPA yesterday.
Judge Dodd told the commission in February that he was diagnosed last year with sleep apnoea.
"I then undertook treatment for that condition following hospital trials and under specialist medical supervision," he said.
"As a result I now do not experience the same symptoms, including daytime drowsiness."
Of nine cases that the Telegraph alleged the judge slept in, two are subject to appeal and a further two are being investigated by the commission.
- NZPA
'Sleeping' judge tried NZ men
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.