Daktory members found guilty of drug-offences

A jury has found two members of a Whangarei "cannabis club" busted by police guilty on drugs-related charges.

It took the jury little more than four hours to deliver their verdicts on Brian Thomas Borland and Sarah Gwenneth Gillgren in the Whangarei District Court yesterday.

Borland, 60, was found guilty of cultivating cannabis, selling cannabis oil, and permitting premises to be used for growing cannabis and Gillgren on possession of cannabis oil for supply and supplying cannabis oil. The jury returned a majority verdict on the charge of supplying cannabis oil for Gillgren.

Gillgren had already pleaded guilty to one charge of cultivating cannabis and another of selling cannabis before their trial started on Monday.

Borland and Gillgren were members of the Daktory Social Club in the city's Port Rd industrial area which was busted by police in January.

Crown prosecutor Jarred Scott told the jury in his closing address the case was not about reforms or legislative changes around cannabis but the illegal actions of Borland and Gillgren. Both thumbed their noses at the law by their deliberate and blatant actions, he said.

On Gillgren, he said police recovered cannabis oil capsules, club receipts and cash from her tent that showed she was just as involved in supplying cannabis oil.

But her lawyer Arthur Fairley said the Crown was asking the jury to infer that just because the capsules were found in a tent, she was therefore a supplier.

He described the Crown case as a "pack of shadows dancing around" and questioned what evidence police had to prove the charges against Gillgren.

In her closing address, Borland's lawyer Kelly Ellis said while the Crown told the jury at the beginning of the trial it would prove all the charges beyond reasonable doubt, in the end some of the charges were dismissed due to a lack of evidence.

The jury retired at noon to consider the verdicts after Judge Harvey summed up the case.