The mother of an Invercargill morphine addict was sentenced
to home detention today after admitting her unwitting
involvement in a drug heist during a family holiday.
Tracy Anne Palmer, a cleaner from Invercargill, received six
months' home detention after her appearance in the Wellington
District Court today.
She had earlier admitted involvement in the knife-point
robbery of the Woburn Pharmacy in Lower Hutt in January by
her 21-year-old son, Luke Duncan.
In his sentencing directions, Judge Ian Mill said the woman
had been in the car while her son committed the robbery, and
apparently had no prior knowledge the heist was about to take
place.
"Out of a sense of loyalty, love and confusion, you became
involved in assisting him, in waiting for him to come out and
transporting him away," Judge Mill said.
However, pharmacy staff had called police to the scene, who
promptly arrested the mother and son when they came back,
apparently to return the drugs.
"Effectively you assisted the police in solving the crime.
Your son was arrested. The drugs were recovered," Judge Mill
told her.
Her son was already back in jail in Invercargill, sentenced
to three-and-a-half years for this charge, as well as another
robbery on the holiday his mother and grandmother apparently
didn't know about.
Defence counsel Phil Mitchell said Palmer, Duncan, and
Palmer's mother had been taking a summer road holiday around
the North Island.
Duncan had recently been released from prison, emerging with
a morphine addiction after his time inside, which his mother
knew nothing about.
On the morning of the robbery, she woke with a headache, and
stopped off at the pharmacy looking for pain-relief
medication.
After finding the shop's painkillers, she realised she could
get them much cheaper from the supermarket, Mr Mitchell said.
On her return to the car, her son announced he was a drug
addict, donned a hoodie and proceeded to rob the store of 196
morphine tablets, 114 methadone capsules and 20 oxy-norm
pills.
He returned to the car with the stolen medication and urged
his mother to make a getaway.
After driving a short distance, she stopped the car and "blew
up at him", then drove him back to the shop to return the
stolen goods and try to make things right, Mr Mitchell said.
It was here they were arrested. Her son tried to take full
responsibility and to spare his mother her conviction and
sentence.
"Unfortunately, because she knew what was happening, she was
party to the robbery," Mr Mitchell said.
