N.Z. man refused bail

Press, 28 February 1981, Page 6

N.Z. man refused bail

NZPA staff correspondent Sydney The police feared for the safety of an Aucklander, Glen Hans Andersen, if he was allowed bail before facing trial, a Sydney court was told yesterday. Detective Senior Constable V. Conant, of the Sydney drug squad of the Australian Federal police, said that from his investigations into New Zealanders in Sydney over the last two years, and

from earlier events “violence was a very real threat to anybody undergoing prosecution.” Mr Kevin Murray, Q.C., counsel for Andersen, asked why anybody would want to kill his client. . “It’s happened before, sir, said Detective Conant. Mr Murray: It has happened before to another person in a similar situation? Detective Conant: Another person who they thought

had given information to the police. Yesterday at the end of the three-day committal hearing, Mr J. Parnell, S.M., decided that Andersen, aged 26, should go to trial to face a New South Wales Poisons Act charge of possessing heroin for supply. He dismissed another charge brought under the Federal Customs Act of possessing heroin, reasonably suspected of having been imported. He also refused bail for Andersen on the police application that they feared he would not turn up for trial. No plea was taken and Andersen declined to make any statement to the Court. Andersen’s father, the Auckland Trades Council president, Mr G. H. Andersen, was in court yesterday morning to hear the magistrate’s decision. Mr Murray, opposing the police application on bail, said his client had known the facts of the case since the time of his arrest last March but had still reported each day to the police, fulfilling his bail requirements. “His father is a well known New Zealand citizen who has come from New Zealand to be here,” said Mr Murray. The fact that the news media had covered the threeday hearing was evidence of the father’s standing in the New Zealand community, he said. . Mr Parnell, in refusing bail, said the material before the Court pointed to the defendant’s having a number of confederates and Andersen had expressed fears for his life to police. No date has been set for Andersen’s trial.