The Crown has pointed to a diarised shopping list that included lidded buckets and green and black spray paint, and suggests it links a woman to a hidden cannabis and a clandestine lab.
The Crown has pointed to a diarised shopping list that included lidded buckets and green and black spray paint, and suggests it links a woman to a hidden cannabis and a clandestine lab.
A woman says police deleted CCTV footage that showed a man they were investigating for drugs on her property in the days before they discovered a hidden methamphetamine lab.
The woman had previously been facing charges related to methamphetamine manufacture alongside her partner, but her charges were dropped at the conclusion of the Crown case. She still faces a charge of possession of cannabis for sale.
The woman, who has chosen to give evidence, told the court during cross-examination that the couple had been away for a weekend and on returning to their Lower Kaimai Ranges property discovered footage from their security cameras that showed a man had been at their property in their absence.
The court heard previously in the trial that police were keeping tabs on that particular man as part of a drug investigation in the lead-up to a 2019 search of the couple’s property that led to the discovery of the suspected lab.
The woman said that man would occasionally come to their place to play table tennis.
She said he didn’t have permission to go there uninvited, nor had he told them he had been at their address when they were away.
She claims the footage showed him sitting on their porch and then leaving, before another security camera caught him returning to the address through the gate a short time later on his motorbike, and heading towards the back end of the property.
The woman said the footage had been on a hard drive seized by police during their search and she believes the police deleted it.
She told Crown prosecutor Ben Smith she was “very, very frustrated” when she couldn’t find the footage once the hard drive was returned to her.
A police email produced by the woman’s lawyer, Philip Hamlin, after cross-examination clarified the police had found nothing on the hard drive, and concluded the device was damaged.
The woman said she didn’t accept that; she believes it was deleted.
The police officers who gave evidence in court before the woman elected to give evidence weren’t asked by her lawyer if the footage had been deleted.
Much of the cross-examination of her evidence involved lists of items she had noted in her diaries - to-do lists and shopping items the Crown points to as links to the clandestine lab, the buckets of cannabis and suitcases of cash, which were all hidden in the bush.
Smith pointed to cans of black and green spray paint, which the Crown alleges could have been used in the camouflage of both buckets and a large reaction device.
The Crown has referred to the camouflage of a reaction device seized from a suspected clandestine lab and says the spray paint it appears to be coated in links it to a couple on trial in Tauranga.
The woman told her lawyer during her re-examination the green cans were intended for repairing a car she borrowed and pranged, and the black paint was for machinery they used in their business - which cannot be named due to suppression orders.
Other lists included items the Crown says could have been used for the suspected clan lab and cannabis storage such as lidded buckets and pulleys - the woman said the buckets were for soaking her whites, the pulleys so she could create a washing line above their fireplace.
Smith asked her about the list-item “Gun City” - and asked her if Gun City sold camouflage netting as seen in the suspected clan lab.
The woman said they had been buying ear muffs to use at a shooting range and she didn’t know if they sold camouflage netting.
The couple deny any knowledge of or involvement in the production of methamphetamine from a suspected clandestine lab, covered in camouflage netting and hidden in dense bush near their property.
The woman told the court both in evidence and under cross-examination that she was a long-time cannabis user, preferring it to conventional medicines to treat anxiety and help her sleep.
She said she used it in small quantities for “medicinal purposes”.
Smith asked her to clarify what she meant by “medicinal”, referring to an example she’d given in her evidence about why police had found some in her handbag during the search.
Her evidence was she had put it in her bag so she could smoke on the beach after swimming at the hotpools.
The woman said yes, she’d smoke on the beach before heading home to sleep.
She denied any involvement or knowledge of the 14kg of cannabis found bagged up and buried in buckets.
Around 14 kilograms of cannabis was seized over the boundary fence of a property belonging to a couple who are charged with possession of cannabis for supply.
The Crown suggested it had been stored so it could be sold over winter when the price of cannabis is higher.
The woman rejected that proposition.
The defence case is the couple had nothing to do with the clandestine lab, nor the hidden cash and cannabis, suggesting instead they belonged to other people.
The woman produced a timeline of weekends away when the defence suggested two men, known to the couple and the subject of police inquiries, could have been accessing the property without anyone knowing.
The trial continues.
HannahBartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.
