Man who sold dope to help dying friend jailed

Paul Anthony Kindelan had wanted to help a dying friend.

But on Tuesday the Havelock North man went to jail for selling cannabis to pay for a dream trip, which terminally ill June Tinkler was unable to make before she died on September 10.

There was sympathy as the tragedy unfolded in the High Court at Napier when Justice Patrick Keane sentenced Kindelan, 25, to two years' imprisonment but granted him leave to apply for home detention.

Kindelan pleaded guilty to one charge of selling cannabis and one of possessing cannabis for supply, involving an estimated 123 "tinnies".

Defence counsel Eric Forster told the court Kindelan didn't regret trying to help his friend but he did regret the way he had tried to help her. Mr Forster said it had been of some embarrassment to the late Ms Tinkler, who was not implicated in the enterprise.

It was one of the few cases in which a person charged with selling cannabis could establish that it was not for personal gain or use, Mr Forster said.

Justice Keane said that Kindelan might well have been prompted by instincts to help his friend, but the means he chose involved offending with amounts of cannabis usually regarded as being of a commercial scale.

The number of tinnies involved was not negligible and the number sold was not insignificant, Justice Keane said.

Two days before the police bust, it was understood that friends of 22-year-old Ms Tinkler were trying to raise money to send her to see her foster parents in Tasmania.

- NZPA