Harrods gift basket drug smuggler gets sentence reduced

Court evidence photographs of the Ecstasy tablets which were smuggled into New Zeland inside a Harrods gift hamper. Photo / supplied

A man who spearheaded a multimillion-dollar drug syndicate run from London that smuggled Ecstasy pills to New Zealand inside Harrods gift baskets has had his sentence reduced by two months.

Matthew Frewer was sentenced last June to eight years and nine months in prison after pleading guilty to three charges of supplying MDMA, a class-B drug.

A minimum period of imprisonment of four years, three months was imposed.

The British-controlled drug ring, busted in July 2008, hid drugs inside gift baskets from Harrods, the famous London department store, and posted them to Auckland addresses rented under false names.

The tablets were then delivered to Frewer, who arranged to distribute them to dealers in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

At his sentencing Justice Geoffrey Venning said he was a principal wholesaler with responsibilities for receiving and delivering MDMA and taking payment.

Frewer sought to have his sentence reduced through the Court of Appeal, which partially upheld his application.

His lawyer Peter Kaye argued that the initial starting point Justice Venning used in his sentencing exercise was too high when compared with similar cases.

He also said not enough discount was given for Frewer's guilty pleas and Justice Venning should not have imposed a minimum period of imprisonment.

The Court of Appeal rejected all these submissions, but gave Frewer a two-month reduction in his sentence because it was not clear whether Justice Venning had taken into account he had spent about a year on extremely restrictive electronically-monitored (EM) bail before being sentenced.

"Given the lack of certainty as to whether an allowance for time on EM bail was in fact given, we need to ensure that the appellant is not disadvantaged. We therefore consider it appropriate to make an additional allowance to take account of the possibility that no specific allowance was in fact made," the Court of Appeal decision said.

A new sentence of eight years and seven months imprisonment was imposed with a reduced minimum non-parole period of four years and two months.