KEY POINTS:
Auckland fashion designer Jason Crawford waved and smiled at supporters in court yesterday before being escorted out to begin a six-year jail term on drugs and receiving charges.
The owner of the now-defunct Insidious Fix fashion label was found guilty by an Auckland District Court jury last November of cultivating cannabis, selling cannabis andreceiving stolen property.
Judge Mary Beth Sharp told Crawford, 37, who was in court forsentencing yesterday, that the police found 10 stolen shipping containers at an Onehunga warehouse used to grow cannabis in a highly sophisticated operation.
The containers had been converted to grow cannabis with lighting, extractor fans, irrigation and foil, she said.
There was also a vast array of stolen items valued at $380,000,including a motorcycle, a campervan, an excavator, photographic equipment, audio systems, an inflatable boat and outboard motor and other items.
It was large-scale commercial growing and put Crawford in the most serious category of cannabis cultivation offending, the judge said.
Crown prosecutor Bruce North-wood said the drugs and receiving offences merited a starting point of 10 years' jail, but Judge Sharp said that was "over the top".
She said Crawford got a year's credit for the drug rehabilitation he had been through, the lengthy time he had been on bail, including a 24-hour curfew, and his substantial personal and material losses.
She said Crawford still denied the offending but accepted "he had aproblem which had brought him tohis knees".
Crawford's lawyer, Gary Gotlieb, said a starting point of four-and-a-half years should be reduced to two years for mitigating factors to allow him to apply for home detention.
"Let this person with his age and his talent get back into the community as soon as he can."
Outside court, Mr Gotlieb said Crawford had been the fall guy for Frances Kitson.
Kitson, who admitted charges when the jury trial started and who appeared as a defence witness during Crawford's trial, was sentenced inFebruary to two-and-a-half years in jail on drugs charges.
Crawford is expected to appeal against conviction and sentence.
- NZPA
