Drug dealer wants to help raise his orphaned nieces

A drug dealer whose sister died in a car crash says he wants to get out of prison as soon as possible to help look after her orphaned daughters.

Dion John Ward (32), before the Dunedin District Court yesterday, was jailed for two years and four months, having pleaded guilty to charges of possessing methamphetamine for supply and dishonestly taking a bicycle.

The drug offending took place in November and the defendant was remanded in custody while the case progressed through court.

The court heard yesterday that while Ward was behind bars, his friend took his own life in February and on March 31 his younger sister, 27-year-old Erica, died when a car driven by Codie Cowie crashed on State Highway 1 between Allanton and East Taieri.

The death had left Ward's mother looking after three young girls.

In a letter to the court, the defendant apologised for his offending and wrote of the ''enormous personal'' costs of being locked up when his sister had died.

Ward said he had struggled with depression but was now ''stronger and more motivated than ever to get out of prison''.

He wanted to help his mother look after his nieces as soon as possible, he said.

Ward was arrested after using a BMW belonging to Scott Trotter to drive to Gore to buy 5g of P.

Trotter made headlines as the man behind a Maitland St burglary last year that netted him a huge weapons cache that he then sold to gang members.

He was jailed for four years and five months in August.

Judge Michael Crosbie said yesterday he had some empathy for Ward's personal circumstances but that counted for little when the court dealt with drug crime.

''You're a spoke in the wheel or a cog in the machine that makes available a drug of the worst kind, that affects so drastically the lives of many other people,'' he said.

It was not just people using class-A drugs for recreational purposes who were affected by such dealing, the judge said. Substances often ended up in the hands of the young and impressionable and the social costs of addiction could be huge.

Judge Crosbie said it was ironic that Ward complained of depression when the drug he was involved with could cause or exacerbate such mental-health issues.

 

 

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