Undercover police "set up" a minor player in a big cannabis
operation with sob stories about a terminally ill family
member, says a New Plymouth lawyer.
Police swooped on 35 gardening businesses across the country
in April. The two-year Operation Lime resulted in 250 arrests
and more than 700 charges.
New Plymouth shop assistant Reuben Wade, 25, was unfairly
taken in an the undercover female detective who visited the
Guru Gardener business, his counsel, Paul Keegan, told the
Taranaki Daily News.
Police transcripts of the conversation between the two
revealed that the officer had told Wade her mother was
terminally ill with cancer and asked for help to grow
cannabis plants to help alleviate her pain.
"Police have set him up," Mr Keegan said. "It was a terrible
thing to go into a shop and use a story like that. It is
entrapment. It's effectively harassment by the police."
It was not until nine months after the undercover operation
that Wade was arrested and charged with two counts of
supplying drug-related equipment following the sale to the
undercover officer of a book on how to grow cannabis and some
fertiliser.
Yet the book Wade sold could easily be bought elsewhere -- as
could the fertiliser, Mr Keegan said.
Results from a search of the Whitcoulls' website came up with
the same book Wade sold to the police officer, along with 179
other marijuana-related titles.
"It really makes a mockery of the law. It is clear that some
reform is needed," Mr Keegan said.
Last week in New Plymouth District Court, Wade pleaded guilty
to the two indictable charges. He will be sentenced on August
16.
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