Drugs courier 'under duress'

When Nicola Christy Geddis became a drug courier she thought she was smuggling cannabis into Christchurch Men's Prison, but the class-A drug she was really carrying could have earned her a life sentence.

The High Court at Christchurch was told that she fell into bad company.

Her boyfriend - identified as "Danny" in court - was often in prison for firearms and violence offences and his associates were well out of her league, said defence counsel David Ruth.

The pre-sentence report described her as naive, and she acknowledged she did not want to lose the boyfriend, a member of a motorcycle group.

When he asked her to deliver a package to the prison, she did.

It arrived in her letterbox, wrapped in a condom.

She concealed it internally and once in the prison she went to the toilet and hid the package in her clothing.

The pair were caught as it was transferred to her boyfriend and there was a struggle.

The package, which Geddis had never opened, contained some cannabis and 0.5g of crystalline methamphetamine, known as "ice" and worth about $500.

Mr Ruth said the 24-year-old kiosk operator had acted under duress, pressured by the associates.

"These people don't take 'No' lightly," he said.

But Crown prosecutor Anne Toohey said she was acting under influence and nothing approaching duress, and Justice Panckhurst agreed.

He pointed out the maximum penalty for supplying a class-A drug was life imprisonment. But he said the amount had been small, it was not a commercial operation and she had taken the risk that the unopened package contained only cannabis because she knew her boyfriend was a user.

He imposed six months' jail for supplying the class-A drug, with leave to apply for home detention.

In the District Court later, Judge Robert Kerr imposed a shorter concurrent term for the cannabis.

- NZPA