Former NZ pop star on drug charges after phone tapped

Former New Zealand pop star Allison Durbin is on trial in Melbourne on drug charges.

Durbin, famous for her 1968 hit I Have Loved Me a Man, is accused of supplying cannabis to convicted drug dealer Giuseppe "Joe" Barbaro.

Barbaro, who is also charged, is a convicted drug dealer, whose daughter Montana was kidnapped in 2004.

Durbin, 54, now known as Allison Giles, is also charged with cultivating and possessing cannabis, and theft of electricity.

Durbin still sported her trademark flowing locks when she appeared in Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Monday. She wore a faded black tracksuit with the word "babe" emblazoned on pants trimmed in hot pink at the hearing, the Herald-Sun newspaper reported.

Detective Sergeant Dale Flynn, of Melbourne's major drug investigation division, told the court he suspected Durbin was supplying cannabis to the convicted drug dealer after listening to a tapped phone call.

The phone taps revealed the pair arranging to meet, after Durbin told Barbaro "that car will probably be ready tomorrow". "That to me is possibly code for a cannabis transaction," Mr Flynn told the court.

"I was aware, or suspicious, that Ms Giles [Durbin] was supplying cannabis to Mr Barbaro."

Mr Flynn said he spied on the pair at a shopping centre after listening to the conversation because they mentioned meeting there but he could not see them exchanging anything.

Barbaro, 49, was recently transferred to a Victorian prison to serve a 4-year drug-related sentence received in New South Wales. He is charged in Melbourne with trafficking commercial quantities of Ecstasy, amphetamines and cannabis.

He waived his right to a committal hearing and Magistrate Felicity Broughton will decide at a later date whether there is enough evidence to order him to stand trial on the charges.

The preliminary hearing of charges against Durbin, Barbaro and five other men arrested during a police drugs operation is continuing this week.

Auckland-born Durbin won New Zealand's premier pop award, the Loxene Golden Disc, for I Have Loved Me a Man in 1968. She won the New Zealand Entertainer of the Year award in 1969, even though she was based in Australia.

She was crowned Australian Queen of Pop three times and had hits with Games People Play, Don't Come Any Closer and Sha La La La Lee, while her biggest Australian hit was Put Your Hand in the Hand.

She switched to country music in the mid-1970s, recording a host of successful albums, before fading from the limelight.

She publicly admitted to a heroin addiction in 1985.

- NZPA