Woman fined $700 on cannabis charge

Press, 8 March 1989, Page 10

Woman fined $700 on cannabis charge

A woman grew cannabis because it was too expensive to buy, she told the District Court yesterday. The police had found 575 g of dried cannabis material, eight plants, 40cm to 180 cm high, hand scales and bags at the defendant’s house, said Sergeant John Dwyer. Penelope Anne Reid, aged 25, a housewife (Mr Peter Egden), admitted cultivating cannabis, and possessing the drug for sale or supply, on February 22. She was convicted by Judge Toomey and fined $7OO. Sergeant Dwyer said Reid told the police that she grew female cannabis plants because of their high quality. The dried material was for her own use, and sometimes for friends.

Although Reid said she had thought of selling some of the cannabis, she had not done so.

The Judge said although the defendant was aware she was doing

wrong she had obviously decided to take a risk. FIREARM OFFENCE

A publican found with an unloaded sawn-off shotgun told the police he had the firearm to frighten some people who had assaulted his wife. He believed they had also assaulted his daughter. Robert Alan Jamieson, aged 46 (Mr Mark Callaghan), had the firearm in his car on Colombo Street on November 20.

An allegation that in the course of a car chase he had pointed the shotgun at the complainant was denied by Jamieson. This charge was withdrawn by the police. Mr Callaghan said there was no ammunition in the gun, and that it was in such a state it was unable to be fired.

The offending arose out of a “domestic crisis” involving his wife and daughter. The Judge said such a crisis did not justify the defendant carrying a

sawn-off shotgun.

It was a serious offence which carried a maximum sentence of two years in prison, or a fine of $4OOO. He fined Jamieson $750. “FUN” AT CRICKET

A man who ran on to the playing area at Lancaster Park with the legs of a lifesize “female form” wrapped around his neck during the luncheon adjournment in the New Zealand-Pakistan one-day match last Saturday, was fined $lOO. What happened at the time might have seemed hilarious, said the Judge to John Pierre Kinnaird, but possibly it did not seem so in the cold light of day when he was standing alone in the dock. Kinnaird, aged 21, admitted he had been drinking beforehand. “In that case,” said Judge Toomey, “You should control your drinking in public.” Kinnaird, who admitted behaving in a disorderly manner, told the police he was just having “a bit of fun.”