Heroin count denied

Press, 9 May 1978, Page 12

Heroin count denied

A young man screamed hysterically when a police party burst into an old house in Terrace Road, SeG ton, looking for drugs, Mr Justice Casey and a jury were told in the Supreme Court yesterday. Russell Francis King, aged 22, who was described as a gardener, has pleaded not guilty to alternative charges of possession of heroin for sale and simple possession of heroin at Sefton on March 8. The trial will end today. Mr N. W. Williamson appears for the Crown and Mr K. N. Hampton for King. Mr Williamson said that the Crown case was that King was caught red-handed with heroin. As a result of information received a police party kept watch on King’s home on March 8.

About 12.20 p.m. Detective G. F. Stebbings saw King walk from his house across some paddocks to some willow trees with a cardboard box. King returned some 20 minutes later. A short time later three persons in a white station waggon arrived at the house. King and one of those persons went to sheds at the rear of the property. Detective Stebbings was crouched outside the lounge window. King came into the lounge with what looked like a bundle of paper which he threw on the table and said: “Here, you had better count them.”

King went towards the

and lit some papers which he put in it. After signalling the two other members of the police party, they entered the house and stamped out the fire. When Detective Stebbings picked up the package King had thrown on the table he found it contained nine paper sachets containing a white powder which later proved to be heroin. King’s fingerprints were found on ! the package. Four sachets of heroin were found in the i back pocket of King’s denim ! shorts. King’s fingerprints 'were found on the sachets. A woirian who lived at the house ran out of the room and dropped two sachets of heroin in the hall.

King said in evidence that he had left the house with a box to pick mushrooms. When he returned to the house he picked up two sachets of heroin from under the refrigerator as he was going to have a “snort” (sniff heroin). One person in the room produced another sachet. He lit the fire to burn rubbish.

One person who was about to have a “snort” had the contents of the sachet spilled over the floor when his hand was struck by the tail of a dog.

There was a sound of breaking glass and three men came in and grabbed him and pushed him up against the wall, said King.

To Mr Williamson, King said that he had purchased the two sachets in Christ-

church for $3O each. He refused to say where he got them. King admitted that he used heroin when he felt like it but went without it for long periods because he feared addiction. I In his final address to the jury, Mr Hampton said that the Crown case was full of red herrings. King had admitted possession of the two sachets of heroin and had been quite open about his use of the drug but he had strongly denied that the dther 15 sachets found at v the house were his.

There was no evidence that all the heroin found in the house had ever been in King’s possession or that he supplied it to any person.