KEY POINTS:
A pupil from a top high school has been charged with importing P - and his bail conditions allow him to return to class tomorrow.
Chun Lee, 17, also known as Larry Lee, appeared in Auckland District Court yesterday charged with importing Class A drugs.
As senior police
expressed amazement at Lee's age and the charge he faces, the boy was preparing to go back to school. Lee is in his final year at decile 10 Takapuna Grammar.
And although he is under a 24-hour curfew, he is still allowed to attend school - and his part-time job with KFC - as usual.
Jan Hill, chair of the board of trustees, confirmed that Lee had been at Takapuna Grammar for the past 18 months. Hill said she did not know about the charge and that Lee had a "very clean record" at school.
Whether he would be allowed to return to class was "a management decision".
"We're a very responsible school."
Principal Simon Lamb was not available for comment.
Yesterday, when the Herald on Sunday approached Lee at home, he vowed he would fight the charge.
Lee said he would be back in court on Wednesday.
Police raided his parents' home on Friday night, he said. Later, they came back to arrest him.
Lee said the police didn't find anything.
He said he had never tried P and had no idea how to make it.
"I don't do any drugs."
He said he knew police had no evidence for the charge. ... "I'm going to fight with them in the court".
Other than attending school and work, Lee's bail conditions mean he will be at home, studying chemistry, biology, calculus, statistics and English at level three NCEA, which was "going OK". He liked playing badminton, golf and table tennis, but those would all be out of the question now.
He said police had confiscated his computer and also removed his cellphones.
The family moved to New Zealand eight years ago. Lee said his first run-in with police was when he was 14 and found wandering the streets at 5am.
He spoke of returning to Taiwan when the case was over. "I was like the top student in Taiwan," he said. "I did pretty well when I started here." But last year he "just didn't try".
He had hopped from Northcote College to Senior College and now Takapuna Grammar. Next year, he wanted to go to Auckland University and study biomedicine.
Lee's parents ran a tour business that covered the whole North Island, he said.
They would be "pretty shocked" and worried about what their friends would think. "I think I'll be fine."
A senior police officer told the Herald on Sunday that it was unusual for methamphetamine to be imported rather than the precursor ingredients, as the drug was still expensive to buy overseas.
Lee's duty solicitor, Annabel Ives, said she knew little other than what was reported in court yesterday morning, and could not comment on the amount of drugs Lee was accused of importing.
"He's 17, so there's a very strong presumption in favour of bail under the Bail Act," Ives said.
Lee's lawyer Sanjay Patel did not return the Herald on Sunday's calls.
