Drug sales to constable alleged

Press, 29 January 1988, Page 8

Drug sales to constable alleged

Trial by jury in the District Court will be faced by Thomas William Gray, aged 47, a showman, for his alleged involvement in selling, to an undercover constable, cannabis amounting to 214.4 g, for which a total of $ll5O was said to have been paid. Gray was committed for trial on charges of selling the drug to the undercover constable on March 17 and March 25 last year. Mr C. W. Crawford and Mrs A. Hill, Justices of the Peace, granted him bail pending a date for his trial. His counsel, Mr P. B. McMenamin, reserved his defence.

Sergeant R. A. Pabst prosecuted. An undercover constable gave evidence of drug purchases at a city hotel in which he said Gray was associated. He said that on March 17, after receiving a telephone call, he called at the Foresters Hotel to make a purchase of cannabis. Gray gave him a packet of potato chips and inside this was a packet of cannabis. The witness went to his car, accompanied by two friends of the defendant. He there weighed the package and gave one of the defendant’s friends $l5O for it. On March 24, he was

again in the public bar of the same hotel and saw Gray, and arranged to buy some more cannabis. Gray said he could get him half a pound for $llOO. He arranged to telephone the witness later. The defendant telephoned the next morning and the undercover constable went to the hotel. He saw Gray, who pointed to another man, and said he would “go out and do it with you.” He went to his car with this person and was given a plastic bag containing cannabis. He weighed this on scales in his car and found it to be 7oz. A discussion then en-

sued over the lighter weight and the defendant was called in and arranged to make it up with some extra cannabis at a future purchase. The defendant then left and the other man returned to the car, and was paid $lOOO for the drug by the undercover constable. The packages were later analysed by the D.S.I.R. chemistry division and found to weigh 27.4 g, and 187 g, according to evidence. Sergeant Pabst said at the close of the police case that the police relied on a provision of the Crimes Act, alleging that Gray was a party to the drug transactions.