Compensation ruled out

Press, 23 April 1986, Page 5

Compensation ruled out

Compensation of $3BBO ordered to be paid by a man convicted in Christchurch of selling cannabis to an undercover policeman on five occasions in 1984 will not now have to be paid, according to a reserved decision by the Court of Appeal. Norman Barry Johnstone had admitted selling 913.3 grams of cannabis plant to an undercover policeman who paid him $3380.

He was jailed for 18 months and ordered to pay $3380 in compensa-

tion. An appeal against the sentence, on the grounds that the term of imprisonment was excessive in the circumstances and that the order to pay compensation was not justified, was made to the Court of Appeal by Johnstone’s counsel, Mr D. C. Fitzgibbon.

The Court found the prison sentence of 18 months was appropriate. On the matter of compensation the Court said it might be that under the Illegal Contracts Act John-

stone did not become entitled to the money paid to him, and that in consequence the police might have a civil claim to recover it. “But that circumstance does not, we think, render the deliberate payment made by the police a loss of property suffered by the police through or by means of Johnstone’s offence.

“Accordingly we are of the opinion there was no power to direct compensation,” says the Court’s decision.