Home detention for giving P to dying ex-husband

A Taranaki businesswoman who supplied more than $17,000 worth of methamphetamine to help her dying former husband has avoided a prison sentence.

Colleen Hart, a former director of Moontide Swimwear, was sentenced to 11 months' home detention by Justice Ailsa Duffy yesterday in the High Court at Auckland.

Hart had previously admitted four charges of possession of methamphetamine for supply between December 2008 and January 2009, after paying for 33g of methamphetamine to give to her terminally ill former husband.

Hart yesterday decided against pursuing a discharge without conviction, partly because she had at one stage been found with a snaplock bag with traces of methamphetamine in it and there was evidence she had been prepared to use the drug herself in the past.

But the Crown also accepted that there was no evidence that she was supplying for personal gain after Hart's lawyer, Gary Gotlieb, said bank records showed she had received a substantial matrimonial property settlement shortly before purchasing the drug.

He said it was this money that she used to buy the methamphetamine, rather than any ill-gotten dealing gains.

Any amount of methamphetamine above 5g is by law assumed to be for supply, but Mr Gotlieb said there was no personal gain in Hart's case.

"This situation is unique to the extent that there was compassion and not commerciality, and the evidence seems to confirm that," he said.

Justice Duffy also said evidence that Hart directed her stepson towards the person she bought methamphetamine from when he sought the drug also suggested she was not dealing for profit.

"If you were going to supply, the opportunity of satisfying your stepson's desire was available to you," the judge said.

"Rather than do that, you essentially acted as a go-between. While this can be an offence of aiding and abetting, it contradicts the suggestion that you were supplying methamphetamine commercially."

The offending ended when Hart's former husband died.

Justice Duffy said a starting point of three years' jail was warranted given the lack of evidence of commercial dealing. She then gave discounts for her guilty plea at the depositions stage and her lack of previous convictions.

But she did not accept the claim that it was a victimless crime.

"By purchasing the drugs, you provided revenue for the dealer and, further down the line, the importer and manufacturer."

Justice Duffy agreed Hart was considered at low risk of reoffending.

"Someone who is the mother of a young child and at minimal risk of reoffending is in the circumstances of this case a candidate for home detention."

- NZPA