Drug smuggler sentenced to jail

Methamphetamine

A Tauranga man who smuggled large quantities of drugs into the country in laptops was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Joseph Lance Evans, 52, earlier pleaded guilty to 12 charges of importing and supplying methamphetamine and cocaine and was today sentenced in Tauranga District Court.

Evans is currently serving a six and a half year jail sentence for kidnapping and sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection.

Today's eight year sentence will be on top of his previous sentence.

Judge Harding agreed a starting point of 12 years for the drugs charges but ruled that a total of 18.5 years in prison was inappropriate and disproportionate for the offending.

He reduced the sentence to eight years with a minimum period of imprisonment of 50 per cent.

Judge Harding said and aggravating factor was the frequency of importation of the drugs which occurred during a period of about six months.

"This was highly pre-meditated and this was high end commercial importation of a scale, fortunately, not often seen in this court."

Charges against Evans' son Seth Neita Evans were recently dropped due to a lack of evidence.