P claims rich man poor man

Two men from opposite walks of life yesterday faced the High Court at Napier on methamphetamine charges - and left by the same door to jail.
The two were 26-year-old fathers Clayton Michael O'Brien and Grant Brendan Carpenter, appearing before Justice Judith Potter.
Each admitted supplying methamphetamine, and claimed determination to get out of the scene that had almost ruined his life.
Justice Potter warned both the maximum sentence was life, and told them she didn't want to see them again - at least not in court.
The two who were arrested in separate and unrelated incidents.
O'Brien, who once chose Black Power as his future "family" after a difficult upbringing and two terms in jail, was sentenced to three years.
His position was aggravated by the discovery of guns and a nail bomb, when his home was searched after he sold methamphetamine to undercover police last October.
O'Brien had admitted charges of supplying methamphetamine, producing cannabis oil, and possessing cannabis oil, illegal possession of firearms, possessing a restricted weapon, and possessing explosives.
The court was told that on October 20 last year he sold methamphetamine for $900 at a pre-arranged meeting in a carpark, to a police officer involved in the extensive East Coast police drugs offensive Operation Nacre.
Winding up the operation in December, police searched his home and found more than a kilogram of cannabis, signs of cannabis oil production, a sawn-off double-barrelled shotgun, a sawn-off .22 rifle, a stun gun, and a nail bomb.
Defence counsel Tony Snell noted O'Brien's own assessment that the firearms reflected the paranoia he had brought-on by his drug use.
Carpenter, a sign-writer from Knightsbridge, was caught when his desperate mother called in police after he stole $7200 from her in March to buy methamphetamine to feed his habit.
Sentencing him to two years, the Judge said it was a mother's "unconditional love for her son" that led her to dob him in, after the "unspeakable" act against his mum.
"It was an extremely hard thing for her to do," said Justice Potter "but it was the right thing."
To encourage Carpenter to repair some of the damage to the family, Justice Potter declined to make formal an order for reparation, saying she expected him to "honour" the commitment to his mother anyway, and to pay off $1620 he owed to the State by way of unpaid fines.
Carpenter pleaded guilty to one charge of supplying methamphetamine, two of receiving stolen property and one of illegally accessing a computer.
The court was told that on March 20 he went into his mother's office at home and used her computer to transfer more than $6000 from one of her accounts to another, and then $7200 from the second account to his own.
The next day he went to the bank, withdrew $7200, and headed for Auckland where he bought about seven grams of methamphetamine, with which returned to Hawke's Bay, to both sell and use.