Heroin dealer given five years gaol

Press, 14 August 1976, Page 5

Heroin dealer given five years gaol

'he courts

The Courts had to | show that dealing in the' degrading trade of heroin was not worth the risk, Mr Justice Somers said in the Supreme Court yesterday when sentencing a young man to five years imprisonment on two charges of selling heroin. The young man, Stephen Richard Walker, aged 23, unemployed, pleaded guilty ‘o two charges of selling hero:n to an undercover constable on May 20 and 22. Mr N. R. W. Davidson, for the prisoner, said that Walker had taken the enormous and unexpected leap of a person with a clear record to appearing on serious charges involving hard drugs. He had not appreciated the seriousness of the offences when he committed them, but he did so now.

Early in 1976 Walker went to Rotorua where he met persons in hotels who were involved in the drug scene and who treated him as a friend when he was rather lonely. After being injured in a logging accident Walker planned to return to Christ-

church for a few days. He was asked by a person to take heroin to Christchurch for sale. Initially he refused but he was needled and taunted by being told that he was a coward because he had nothing to be frightened of and there would be no difficulty. Walker changed his mind and he was told what price the heroin was to be sold at in Christchurch. He was given a telephone number to ring in Christchurch and told that the network would make the transactions very simple. On his return to Rotorua 1 all he had gained from the venture was his air fare to and from Christchurch. He was asked to bring another lot of heroin to Christchurch but refused. Walker was nothing more than a minor agent for the sale. Other persons involved in i the transactions had still to be dealt with by the Court. There was nothing in Walker’s past which would indicate that he would behave in this way and the offence was out of character. Walker had a very shortterm involvement in the drug scene and was nothing more than a courier. He accepted what he had done was a real evil and was determined to put the episode behind him, Mr Davidson said.

His Honour said that on May 20 Walker had sold 40 capsules of heroin in a bottle and some loose heroin in another bottle, of a total weight of 2.5 g, to an undercover constable for $l5OO. Two days later he sold a further two capsules of heroin weighing 58mg to the same man for $4O. That was a substantial amount of heroin. He took the view that Walker was not a user of heroin, said his Honour. He had been asked to treat Walker as a courier or, at the worst, as a minor agent for some principal. “Your activities as set out in the evidence in the lower Court suggests that your involvement was much greater than that. It is perfectly clear that you were actively engaged in the sale of a large amount of heroin for money. “It is well known that in the case of persons dealing in hard drugs for gain that the primary concern of the Court must be the deterrent nature of the punishment, “Your case is a distressing one but personal considerations are relatively insignificant against the background of this degrading trade. The offences are extremely serious and the Court has to show that dealing in heroin is not worth the risk,” his Honour said.