Husband guilty in drug overdose death

By JO-MARIE BROWN


A former nurse who has been convicted of manslaughter was originally charged with murder after his wife told police before she died that she had been forced to take a methadone overdose.

It was revealed yesterday that the Court of Appeal ruled a murder prosecution against Ian Hamer could not go ahead despite his wife having made statements to police as she lay gravely ill in hospital last year.

Hasnah Hamer told Tauranga detectives that her husband, who was a registered general and psychiatric nurse, had suggested she drink the methadone after they had had an argument, saying, "if you love me, you will take this".

She later elaborated on events and said she did not want to consume the bottle's contents but her husband had forced it down her throat.

However, the Court of Appeal ruled in August that those statements were inadmissible because Hasnah Hamer retracted her version of events before she died.

While she claimed her husband had not threatened her or asked her to change her story, he had - in breach of his bail conditions - been in contact with her in hospital, phoning her at least 11 times.

Hasnah Hamer subsequently told police she wanted to be with her husband and that she had voluntarily taken the methadone herself.

A further explanation to a lawyer painted a confused picture about whether she had wanted to hurt herself, and because she later died, the Court of Appeal said defence lawyers would not have the opportunity to cross-examine her about those inconsistencies if a murder trial went ahead.

Suppression of the court's ruling was lifted yesterday following Hamer's conviction for manslaughter in the High Court at Rotorua. Jurors were told the full story by Justice Rhys Harrison only after they had delivered their guilty verdict.

Hamer now faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for failing to get medical help for his wife in time. Knowing that the Malaysian-born woman had swallowed a potentially fatal dose of methadone one night in February last year, Hamer waited 17 hours before calling an ambulance.

The officer in charge of the case, Detective Sergeant Todd Pearce, yesterday described the 47-year-old as a selfish drug addict who cared more for his methadone than he did for his wife's well-being.

"Hasnah Hamer has paid for his negligence with her life and it was only a right and fair result that he should be publicly acknowledged as having been the cause of her death."

Though Hamer spent many years working as a picture framer in Hastings and Tauranga, he had worked in several hospitals as a nurse since qualifying in 1985.

"He was armed with more knowledge than most people and knew exactly what to do in those given set of circumstances and he still failed to act," Mr Pearce said.

The methadone Hasnah Hamer drank belonged to her husband who was taking the prescription medication to combat a serious drug addiction. Mr Pearce said Hamer had been a drug addict on and off since the 1970s when he was convicted of possessing heroin and cannabis.

He had tried to get his life back on track in the 1980s when he became a Christian and began nursing training. He began abusing prescription medication again in the late 1990s while working at Tauranga Hospital.

After two failed marriages, he met and married Hasnah in 2001 who had come to New Zealand on a working holiday. Their relationship ran into trouble just before the overdose incident when Hamer discovered his wife was still married to somebody else.

Albert Ruegg, a long-time friend of Hamer, said yesterday that the 47-year-old genuinely loved his wife and he was shattered when she died.

Mr Ruegg believed Hamer should never have been charged because his drug addiction had distorted his personality. "You cannot judge him as a reasonable, normal person. He was a sick man who needed help."