DRUG CHARGES Witness Supplied Marijuana To Girl

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30211, 16 August 1963, Page 16

DRUG CHARGES Witness Supplied Marijuana To Girl

(New Zealand. Press Association) AUCKLAND, August 15. A Crown witness against a 21-year-old married woman appearing on drug charges admitted in cross-examination in the Supreme Court at Auckland today that he had supplied a marijuana cigarette to an 18-year-old girl. He said that, when he came before the Court for sentence, his counsel had said that he was assisting the police in drug inquiries.

The witness, Joseph Whitehead, aged 21, an apprentice, was giving evidence against Colleen Joy Paterson, who has pleaded not guilty to one charge of supplying Indian hemp to Whitehead, who at the time was under 21, and two charges of having Indian hemp in her possession. The hearing is before Mr Justice Woodhouse and a jury. Mr S. A. Cleal, for the Crown, said that after an incident in March, special duty police went to the accused’s flat and found traces of the drug in the washhouse and a bedroom and took a glass jar from a hiding place in a wall. The accused had denied all knowledge of the drug, but said that her friends used the flat from time to time.

Whitehead in evidence said he went to the flat on March 10 with several others and the accused was asked “to turn it on.”

She produced and lit a cigarette. In all, they smoked four cigarettes. Whitehead said he felt light-headed, dizzy and hysterical after smoking, the effects of which Lasted about an hour and a half.

Cross-examined by Mr Robinson, Whitehead agreed that he had been admitted to probation for 12 months and fined £lOO for possession of marijuana himself. He told Mr Robinson that he had

given an 18-year-old girl a “cigarette.” He said that when he was to be sentenced, bis counsel had pleaded in mitigation that he was helping the police in connexion with drugs. The accused said in evidence on her own behalf that she was now separated from tier husband. In about July of last year, after her marriage, she took work as a waitress in a coffee-bar, working Sunday to Thursday nights. After she had started work, some people came to stay at the flat occupied by herself and her husband. She and her husband separated in about December last year. Part of the trouble between her and her husband was drugs. She said she had reason to believe her husband was using drugs. She knew that some of her husband’s friends were using drugs. She had never smoked marijuana herself.

“I have actually found what I knew was marijuana in my house,” she said. “That was when I was cleaning up. I used to find it when they (her husband and friends) were staying with me.” The accused said she knew Whitehead. She could remember only one occasion when he had been to her flat. No-one then smoked drugged cigarettes. She said Whitehead’s evidence was quite false.

The trial will be continued tomorrow.