Court dismisses Fulcher’s appeal

Press, 13 May 1987, Page 4

Court dismisses Fulcher’s appeal

PA Wellington The crime of which Peter Fulcher had been convicted was a heinous one of its kind, the Court of Appeal said on Monday. The Court dismissed an appeal by Fulcher, aged 46, company director, against a 14-year prison sentence imposed in the High Court at Auckland last year on one count of conspiring to supply heroin, three of importing heroin, and three of possession of heroin. Fulcher’s appeal against conviction was also dismissed. The Court comprised Mr Justice Cooke, president, Mr Justice McMullin and Mr Justice Henry. Delivering the oral' judgment of the Court, Mr Justice Cooke said the 14year sentence was at the relevant time the maximum that could be imposed for crimes of this category.

He said the Court by no means overlooked the force of submissions by Mr Mike Bungay, Q.C., that Fulcher had already served “something over four years” of an 18-year-

sentence imposed on him in Australia ■ for drug crimes committed before the offences which were the subject of the New Zealand charges. It might well be, however, that there was. a very real connection between the Australian crimes and the New Zealand crimes, he said. His Honour said it was not for the Court to speculate how it came about that Fulcher was able to secure his freedom in Australia after serving such wa, comparatively short, part of the sentence there, Counsel had some opinion on the matter but it was not necessarily complete and there was no-call on the Court to go into that issue. His Honour said it certainly was a case where an unusally long period of imprisonment had been imposed on Fulcher, but regrettably it was a very bad case. He said the crimes for which Fulcher was convicted in New Zealand related to a period of about a year and no less than about 1150 g of what the trial judge rightly described as high quality heroin were involved.