‘POLICE HARASSING US’—OCCUPANTS

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33941, 6 September 1975, Page 1

‘POLICE HARASSING US’—OCCUPANTS

Allegations have been made to “The Press” that the Christchurch police drug squad has been harassing the occupants of a house in Mansfield Avenue, St Albans, An occupant, Mr C. Kryt, aged 22, said that two houses in which the group had lived over the last 18 months had been raided seven times by the drug squad. The latest raid, at 10.30 a.m. yesterday, had left the place in an "utter shambles,” he said. Three persons were arrested. No-one in the house had been arrested on previous raids. Mr Kryt said that he, and nine others, lived in the flat in a “type of commune.” The rest of the group lived in another house not far away. Mr Kryt invited a reporter of “The Press” to visit the house and to see “the mess the police left behind.” In a small corridor being used as a bedroom, mattresses. bedding, and clothes lay in a large, untidy heap on the floor. A bed had been dis- I mantled, and up-ended, •

and empty cardboard boxes and drawers lay strewn about. The mess ■ was confined mainly to this small area. The rest ef the house appeared to have been, undisturbed. The occupants said that the police had emptied the contents of two adjoining rooms into the corridor. These rooms appeared rather bare, as if things had been removed, but so also did another room which the occupants said the police searched only cursorily. The police deny that they were responsible for the mess or any damage to the house. [The acting head of the Christchurch C. 1.8. (Detective Inspector R. N. MacDonald) said that six detectives, with a search warrant, had made the search. “It was properly conducted. It was not necessary to break open or damage anv property,” he said. “As a result of incidents which occurred at the house, three persons were arrested — one for assaulting a police officer. one for obstruction and escaping from cus-

tody, and one for supplying narcotics and escaping from custody,” he said. Detective Sergeant C. T. Dalziel, the officer in charge of the drug Squad, said that the police had not made the mess ‘and were not responsible for the up-ending of the bed — which was occupied at the time of the search — or for strewing mattresses about.

He said that a member of the search squad had returned to the house after the search. It then looked untidier tljan it had been when he had left in the morning. He had asked what had happened to cause such a mess. Mr MacDonald said that the police officers had conducted themselves in a proper manner, and in accordance with the law. Mr Kryt said that the person who had been arrested on the drug charge yesterday had been visiting the house when the police arrived, and was probably wanted in relation to an offence committed in Auckland.

When the police usually searched the flat, they

displaced a few things, and left a small mess. This time they had “ripped apart two bedrooms, and the corridor,” Mr Kryt said.