A controversial boxing manager who ran a nationwide meth-dealing ring has today been jailed for more than three years.
David John Blaikie, 53, was behind the clandestine drug-dealing operation that police discovered was flooding Christchurch with P.
He admitted his kingpin role earlier in the year but his sentencing was delayed while he underwent corrective knee surgery after being knee-capped in an underworld beef two years ago.
Blaikie, formerly known as John Glozier, appeared via audio-visual link from Auckland at Christchurch District Court today for sentencing on charges of supplying the class A drug, methamphetamine.
With the assistance of a crutch he appeared in the dock dressed in a white tracksuit top.
The court heard that in April 2013, police began investigating the flow of meth flooding a rebuilding Christchurch post-earthquakes.
They identified Blaikie, a former boxing manager and promoter, as the source.
Methods of transporting the drugs from Auckland to Canterbury included drug mules - occasionally Blaikie himself - carrying packages on domestic flights.
In June last year, illicit couriers carried a total of 40 grams of meth - with a street value of $40,000 - on flights to Christchurch where it was handed over to local distributors.
Ashburton carpenter Raymond Donal Todd, a 36-year old father-of-four who took the consignments, was jailed for three years, 10 months earlier this year for his role, plus other offending.
Todd's friend, Jason Richard Beckley, 42, who who helped him in a driving role, was sentenced to nine months home detentions and 300 hours of community work.
Blaikie, who has previously served jail time for meth dealing and conspiring to import cocaine, spent six months in custody before a lawyer eventually got him electronically monitored bail, defence counsel Serena Bailey said today.
The lawyer told the court that his release was sought so he could undergo corrective knee surgery after previous unsuccessful operations. The stint in jail had not helped his knee's progress, she said.
Judge Raoul Neave said his offending was premeditated and profit-motivated - either cash or more drugs.
The judge accepted that he had spent a long period on electronically-monitored bail under "intensive scrutiny" through police checks.
He also took six months off his sentence given the difficulties he will have in serving time with his knee injury and jailed him for three years and four months.
However, the judge noted: "The circumstances in which you received the injury confirm the circles in which you were moving."