The court was told Pohatu acted alone in her drug operation, which she based from her shared house in Hudson Street, Kaiti.
She monitored the perimeters of the house with CCTV cameras, which fed back to a receiving unit in her lounge room.
Police searched the house in November and December 2021, then again in February and March 2022. Each time they found drugs and other incriminating items — meth pipes, syringes, scales and thousands of dollars in cash.
The drugs found were pre-packaged and labelled in drug-dealing slang as to the amounts — “halves”, “quarts”, “watches” and “timeys”.
During one of the searches, officers seized two of Pohatu’s phones that were found to contain conversations evidencing daily drug dealing and photographs showing methamphetamine and cannabis that had been in her possession.
Also on the phones were videos of Pohatu and a friend wearing gang patches, and holding meth and meth pipes.
In one video, the friend said anyone who wanted “P” should go to Pohatu.
Interviewed by police after her arrest, Pohatu said the drugs weren’t hers but belonged to a cousin who had stolen them from a drug dealer to get them out of the community.
When asked to corroborate it, Pohatu’s cousin couldn’t give the necessary detail.
Asked about the stolen garden items, Pohatu said: “I buy a lot of items. Once people find out what I’m interested in, they just bring stuff around”.
Legal arguments at sentencing centred on Pohatu’s role in the offending and the amount of drugs involved.
Counsel Vicki Thorpe contended Pohatu’s role was akin to a courier and she shouldn’t be sentenced as anything more.
In terms of profit, Pohatu achieved nothing more than a “break-even” position, Ms Thorpe said.
She also submitted the court should not take into account any of the drugs pictured in the photos and that Pohatu should only be sentenced for the 149g of meth, which police had been able to clearly ascertain.
Ms Thorpe argued for a starting point of four years imprisonment as appropriate for the lead methamphetamine offending. She said mitigating factors coupled with steps Pohatu had since taken to address her offending — including doing a residential rehabilitation programme — could bring the end sentence in reach of home detention, which she urged the court to impose.
Crown prosecutor James Bridgman sought a starting point of five-and-a-half years. Pohatu’s role was greater than merely being akin to a courier, he said. She was single-handedly operating a business and was motivated by financial gain — at least in part.
The court could infer from the phone photos that greater amount of drugs were involved than the amounts police were actually able to define.
Judge Cathcart agreed with the Crown that he couldn’t ignore the inference from the photos there had been further quantities of drugs involved.
He set a starting point of five years imprisonment, uplifting it to seven-and-a-half years for the cannabis and receiving offences, but reducing it for totality to six years.
Discounts the judge gave totalled three years, nine months — 16 months (not quite a full 25 percent) for Pohatu’s guilty pleas, five months discount for the 371 days she spent on electronically-monitored bail and 24 months discount for her addiction and efforts to address it, the likely impact of the sentence on her family, and remorse.
