Allowed home to be used to make meth

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

Gisborne carpenter Warren Traue, 55, has been sentenced to 10-and-a-half months home detention for allowing houses he lived in as a tenant to be used as P labs, and for possessing equipment and substances used to manufacture the drug.

The sentence was imposed by Judge Warren Cathcart in Gisborne District Court yesterday. Traue will serve it at a West Auckland address.

The judge said anything less than home detention would be inadequate. Traue need only reflect on the sentence starting point of two years, 10 months imprisonment, to see the seriousness of his offending.

(Discounts of six months for personal circumstances and a full 25 percent for guilty pleas, reduced the term to within the range for conversion to home detention.)

Traue was only granted home detention because of steps he had already taken to address his methamphetamine addiction and in the absence of evidence he directly manufactured the drug or gained profit from it, Judge Cathcart said.

Any hint of commerciality to Traue’s offending and he would have been jailed, the judge warned.

Traue pleaded guilty last August to three charges of allowing premises to be used to manufacture methamphetamine, three of possessing equipment for its manufacture, and one of possessing precursor substances for the drug.

Counsel Peter Kaye said while the pleas came two years after the charges were laid they were immediate once the Crown withdrew its allegation Traue was directly involved in manufacturing methamphetamine.

Evidence showed Traue was an addict who helped facilitate other people’s production of the drug and that he was only repaid with product for his personal use.

Prosecutor Jo Rielly said the Crown was not opposed to the non-custodial sentence. Traue’s continued rehabilitation would benefit the community.

Given his age and background, it seemed unlikely Traue would reoffend if allowed to properly rehabilitate.

Traue’s offending was first detected on November 4, 2016 — a few days after he moved out of the house he had rented and lived in for nearly two years in Waipaoa Road.

Drug tests commissioned by the landlord after the property was vacated showed extremely high levels of methamphetamine, consistent with its manufacture.

In the process of moving to a property in Oak Street, Traue borrowed a vehicle and trailer from an associate at a Matokitoki Valley Road address, where he left his own vehicle. About a week later that house burned down in an arson.

Police who attended the scene found the remains of Traue’s vehicle, which was partially burnt out, and at the rear of it a steam distiller lid and base and a container of sulphuric acid — items used in methamphetamine production.

Traue had also been staying sporadically at a girlfriend’s house in Ormond Road. A police search of that property on November 9, 2016, revealed two large distillers in a shed, some water hosing and electric cables. One of the distillers was a “Bomb” high pressure reaction vessel unique in New Zealand; the other, a modified 50 litre keg, for use as a reaction vessel.

That same day, police also searched Traue’s new Oak Street home. Items found there included distillation condensers, steam distillers, another unique “bomb” high pressure reaction vessel, various glass beakers, portable gas cookers, hot plates, and an array of chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine.

Inside the house were utensils for using the drug, point bags, and other drug paraphernalia.

Items taken from the three addresses were scientifically tested and all were found to have been used for methamphetamine production.

When questioned, Traue admitted the car found at Matokitoki Valley Road was his but did not comment on the items inside it. He said any items found at Ormond Road were his, and that the needles inside the Oak Street house were his for meth when he had it.

Traue’s sentence will be followed by six months standard and special conditions.