Nelson man guilty on drug charge

Press, 21 June 1978, Page 2

Nelson man guilty on drug charge

Nelson reporter A Battle of Britain pilot! who won the D.F.C. and Bar! and attained the rank of acting wing commander, was convicted by a jury in the; Supreme Court at Nelson yesterday of cultivating can-! nabis.

Mr Justice Quilliam remanded James Chilton! Francis Hayter, aged 60, a camping ground proprietor, to Friday for sentence. Hayter had pleaded not guilty to a charge of cultivating cannabis at Takaka on or about] December 16 last year. Hayter is represented by Mr D. H. Stringer of Christchurch, with him Mr D. J. Maze. Mr P. W. Graham appeared for the Crown. The prosecution evidence! was that the Hayter proper- ; ty, known as “Rocklands,” •was one of seven Golden ! Bay properties searched for (cannabis by the police on ; December 16 last year. Inj two separate clearings, six] cannabis seedlings and 31 i seedlings were found grow-: ing. Constable J. W. Sinclair and Detective Sergeant K. R. Burt gave evidence of accompanying the accused to one of these clearings. When shown the clearing with six cannabis plants in it, accused had said: “Is that cannabis? I have never seen it growing before.” Accused had told them that he had a book on cannabis at the house. Constable Sinclair said that accused had denied knowledge of the 31 plants in the second clearing, saying that anybody could have planted them. Detective Sergeant Burt said Hayter had admitted clearing the two areas by

felling sycamore trees to allow sunlight to fall directly on the clearings. Hayter in evidence said that he had been a farmer, a first officer in a ship. a| squadron leader and acting wing commander, and that he had won a D.F.C. and Bar. He had never cultivated cannabis.

The “Rocklands” property, on which the cannabis was found, had been in the fartiily about 52 years, said Hayter. It was involved in proiperty deals which he was I negotiating some time before I December. The deal included j exchanging the property for a camping ground at TuI fcurua. He took over the 1 camp on December 22. ’ He had cleared both areas with the intention of planting tamarillos in them for this was a frost-free area very suited to sub-tropical fruits. He had felled some jsycamores so that direct | sunlight would fall upon the i clearings. Asked by Mr Graham why he had cleared two areas about three weeks before the police raid when he had been negotiating three weeks earlier to sell the property, Hayter said the property deal was “very iffy” and he was not sure if it would come off. A neighbour, Rosemary Frances Jones, a schoolteacher, said that she and her husband often visited the accused and he had shown them where he had cleared land for the planting of tamarillos. She told Mr Graham that Hayter had not actually taken her on to the cleared land and she was not sure if her husband had been taken to it.