TV man admits drugs charges

Former TV3 newsreader Darren McDonald has pleaded guilty to drugs charges including offering to supply Ecstasy.

McDonald, who had name suppression until yesterday, had been due to face a High Court jury trial next week on the charges, which date back to December 2001.

But in the High Court at Auckland yesterday, the 37-year-old pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply the class-B drug methamphetamine and offering to supply MDMA, or Ecstasy.

Justice Colin Nicholson remanded McDonald on bail for sentencing next month.

According to the prosecution, McDonald had offered to supply nine Ecstasy tablets to a co-offender, Craig Thompson.

The tablets were being brought into the country from Australia by a friend of McDonald.

Thompson had been the target of a police operation which bugged his Auckland apartment in the penthouse suite of Auckland's Duxton Hotel. McDonald got caught because he used to go to the apartment to buy drugs from Thompson.



Thompson and his girlfriend, Kristen Emmerson, have been sentenced to 6 1/2 years and six years respectively.

They pleaded guilty to charges of importing Ecstasy, possessing methamphetamine and Ecstasy for supply, and conspiracy to supply.

TV3's news and current affairs director, Mark Jennings, said the channel had stood McDonald down after the charges were laid last year, and he had resigned shortly afterwards.

Mr Jennings said he felt sorry for McDonald, who was a talented reporter.

McDonald had started at TV3 in 1998, reading weekend news breaks.

He had previously worked in high-profile newsreading posts in Australia with Channels 7 and 9, and did a two-year stint on the high-rating show Sex.

McDonald had also made wildlife films, which he produced, directed and hosted, and had spent a couple of years on the Great Barrier Reef filming humpback whales.

In February 2000, McDonald suffered facial injuries after he was attacked at an Auckland waterfront bar by a man said to be enraged by newsreaders and their salaries.

Last year, McDonald told a Herald reporter that he was innocent of the drug allegations.

"The charges are scurrilous and I shall defend them to the end. Once I get to trial, I will get off these charges."

Last night, McDonald said he would love to comment on his guilty pleas but his legal advice was not to do that now.

He was interviewed in his home country, Australia, last year and declared his innocence in Brisbane's Courier Mail newspaper.