Yesterday the court heard searches of To’ofohe’s car, home and phone allegedly revealed 11kg of methamphetamine and more than $600,000 in cash.
Yesterday To’ofohe’s defence alleged there were serious shortcomings with the way police handled the drugs.
Today, on the second day of To’ofohe’s jury trial, Jefferies asked Detective Senior Sergeant Trevor Collett why only samples from 6kg of the methamphetamine that police say they found were sent to the ESR for testing.
“Why didn’t you grab one of the Skoda station wagons the police use, open up the tailgate, put all these bags into a cardboard box, put them in the back of a Skoda and drive them out to the ESR at Kenepuru and ask them to analyse the drugs, why wasn’t that done?” Jefferies asked.
“Because the ESR in Kenepuru [north of Wellington] doesn’t analyse the drugs,” Collett explained.
As the officer with managerial oversight of Operation Elusive, Collett told the court he wasn’t prepared to courier a million dollars of drugs to Auckland.
He told the court flying wasn’t feasible because controlled drugs are prohibited on planes and driving them to Auckland would have taken a number of days.
“We sampled the largest of the bags, being approximately 6kg. Those samples were delivered to the ESR, as per protocol. The ESR has analysed those samples, and those samples have confirmed the presence of methamphetamine.”
Asked why all the drugs weren’t taken to the ESR, Collett said it was due to a number of factors, including cost and security.
But Jefferies said drugs were seized and tested every day around the country.
“It’s not every day that 11kg of methamphetamine are received by the ESR in Auckland by courier post,” Collett said.
Instead, the drugs were tested by police using a handheld chemical identification device called the FirstDefender.
Jefferies produced a copy of a police manual that said the device was not an absolute or conclusive identification tool for evidential purposes in court proceedings and its results should be verified.
But Collett told the court the FirstDefender was a reliable indication of any chemical substance.
Collett said samples of the largest bags were tested by the ESR and a FirstDefender device and both confirmed the presence of methamphetamine.
“The remaining 220-odd packages were not sent to the ESR, practical and financial reasons dictated that,” he said.
Crown prosecutor Tim Bain objected to Jefferies' continued line of questioning that the FirstDefender was unreliable, saying there was no evidence it was.
Collett told the court FirstDefender was reliable, noting it was also used by the NZ Defence Force and NZ Customs.
Bain also referred to the police manual, which discussed the advantages and limitations of the device.
Asked about the need to verify the results of the devices, Collett said that meant sending a sample to the ESR for testing.
Collett said it wasn’t unusual to send samples in a case like this. In fact, the police manual recommended it. He agreed there was nothing in the manual to say sampling was prohibited.
The trial before Justice Cheryl Gwyn is expected to continue at least this week.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.
