Oath refused; trial adjourned

Press, 20 April 1982, Page 4

Oath refused; trial adjourned

A Crown witness refused to take the oath or give evidence in a drugs case before the District Court yesterday. The jury trial was adjourned. The witness, Lawrence Alfred Ward, was to have given evidence in the Crown’s case against William Allen Dennett, aged 38, a driver, who denied a charge of cultivating cannabis at Broomfield, near Amberley, on December 16 last year.

After an adjournment Judge Kerr stood the witness down in custody until other witnesses called by the Crown had given evidence. Mr Ward was then recalled to the witness box but again refused to take the oath or give evidence. The Judge then ordered him held in custody until this morning, and adjourned the trial to then, to give • Mr Ward a further opportunity of being sworn in and giving

evidence. He directed that legal advice be made available to Mr Ward.

Prosecution evidence in the case was that a police party kept watch on an area of scrub alongside a dry riverbed at Broomfield, near Amberley. The defendant and Mr Ward were seen to come out of the area and drive off in the defendant’s car, which was stopped by police at a bridge nearby. After Mr Ward was spoken to he took a constable to an area of blackberry and gorse, through which a tunnel had been cut. Evidence was that 5m through the tunnel was a clearing of 100 sq ft, in which three cannabis plants grew. Through another 5m long tunnel was a second clearing, containing 12 or 13 plants from 6in to Bin high. There were also plastic bags in the Wearing. A police dog, Ozi, and his

handler, Constable G. K. Lassen, were called from Christchurch and followed a trail from where the defendant’s car had been seen parked, for 500 m to the tunnel entrance.

Constable A. C. Stevenson, of Rangiora, said a small quantity of cannabis leaf was found in the defendant’s car,' and eight large plastic bags and pruning shears were found in the boot.

The defendant strongly denied growing cannabis and told the constable he had spend considerable time in the previous two to three weeks walking along various riverbeds looking for cannabis plants that other people had planted.

The defendant told Constable Stevenson he would show him the riverbed area where he had found about 35 cannabis plants. He took the

constable through scrub, broom, lawyer, and blackberry bushes looking for the plants he said he had found, but could not appear to find them. Constable Stevenson said the defendant said when interviewed that he had gone to the. area to look for cannabis plants. He went with Lawrence Ward, his brother-in-law. He found three plants in a plot. His brother-in-law had called him over to it, and stripped some leaves from one plant. There were 35 or 37 plants in another plot.

He told the constable he and his brother-in-law smoked cannabis a lot. Cross ; examined, Constable Stevenson said Mr Ward had been charged and been convicted in the Rangiora .District Court with cultivating cannabis on December 16. He had pleaded guilty.