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A bout of flu has delayed sentencing for three people found guilty of conspiring to supply the class A drug P, or pure methamphetamine, in Christchurch.
Justice John Fogarty, who granted David Bain bail in the High Court at Christchurch yesterday, was scheduled this afternoon to sentence three more people caught in a major police undercover anti-drugs operation in 2005.
But a High Court spokesman said Justice Fogarty had the flu.
The sentencings would go ahead as soon as they could be rescheduled, possibly on Friday, he said.
Mother of two Deborah Jan Gordon-Smith was jailed for eight years yesterday for her part in the conspiracy and also for supplying ecstasy, having ecstasy for supply, and supplying cannabis.
Boon Lim Chin, described by his lawyer as a wheeler-dealer who, according to the evidence, dealt in jackets, paua and methamphetamine, was jailed for 6-1/2 years.
Still for sentence on the conspiracy charges are Xioakang Wang, Jonathan Nuki Lummis Jarden, and Angie Lee Hurring.
During the six-week trial that started in February evidence was given of couriers travelling from Auckland to Christchurch with bulk drug supplies.
Intercepted telephone and text messages between the five offenders showed they were talking in code to disguise drug dealing, the Crown said.
In May last year, the drug syndicate's ringleader, Rong-Jun Sui, was jailed for nine years and four months and will be deported to China at the end of his sentence.
Sui, then 21, was caught with methamphetamine worth almost $180,000 and $26,650 in cash when the police raided his home in December 2005.
- NZPA
