Eight years jail for drug import

Press, 19 May 1989, Page 11

Eight years jail for drug import

An “unsophisticated country boy” who fell into the clutches of experienced criminals while on a working holiday in the United States, became part of a drug ring importing high quality cocaine into New Zealand, Mr Justice Fraser was told in the High Court yesterday. Arrested on the day he was to be married, Paul James Clementson, aged 24, an unemployment beneficiary, was jailed for eight years on four drug charges. After pleading guilty in the District Court at Greymouth to one charge of importing into New Zealand cocaine, a class A drug, and to three charges of conspiring to supply cocaine, Clementson was committed to the High Court in Christchurch for sentence.

Mr Justice Fraser was told by counsel that Clementson’s American girl friend was standing by him and intended to resume their relationship on his release from prison. Mr Justice Fraser said that Clementson’s part was to arrange the distribution and sale of the cocaine in New Zealand. The purpose of the scheme was to make a profit.

In August, 1988, the first package of cocaine valued at about $60,000 was sold and the 300 g remaining were buried on Clementson’s property. A substantial package was received in November and some of that was sold and what remained was hidden with the first lot. 'I In April, 1989, a search warrant was executed by the police and Clementson was found in possession of

$lO,OOO, which he had admitted came from the cocaine transactions.

Cocaine weighing 658 g, was found on the property, and on the basis on which Clementson was selling the drug, it was worth something like $230,000. If retailed in small quantities at street level it would have realised more than $500,000. The offending was on a big scale for commercial gain, Mr Justice Fraser said.

In 1987,. Clementson was sentenced to six months imprisonment for the possession of cannabis for supply.

Cocaine was a class A drug and the maximum penalty for its importation was imprisonment for life, and for conspiring to supply, it was 14 years. Those terms indicated the seriousness with which that type of offending was viewed.

It was necessary for the Court to express the community’s condemnation of the importation of drugs of that type and quantity, and making them available to persons in New -Zealand. "The Court must also do what it can to deter others who might be tempted to embark on schemes of this sort, especially when those schemes are frankly for commercial gain,” Mr Justice Fraser said. An order was made for the forfeiture to the Crown of the $lO,OOO found in Clementson’s possession as it was the proceeds from drug deals. For Clementson, Mr Kevin Taylor, of Hokitika, said that it was accepted by his client that a prison term was inevitable because of the serious nature of the charges.

Clementson came from a country area north of

Westport and had no academic qualifications or specialist skills.

“He is the classic case of the unsophisticated country boy getting caught up with older and experienced criminals and ending up in his current predicament,” said Mr Taylor. At the instigation of a middle-aged American, who employed him as a petrol-station attendant, Clementson became involved in a scheme to sell cocaine in New Zealand. Some two or three weeks before his return to New Zealand with his American girl-friend, Clementson resolved to get out of the drug scene as he realised that he was totally out of his depth and was dealing with some bad people. Clementson made nothing from the scheme and said that it was fortunate that he was apprehended when he was.

He had been in a stable de facto relationship with his American girlfriend for some weeks and on the day he was arrested, he had intended to get married. She had stood by him and intended to continue their relationship when he was released from prison. At the first opportunity, Clementson had pleaded guilty and he had been in custody for iy 2 months, mostly in solitary confinement, which had been a salutary lesson to him. While in prison, Clementson intended to learn a trade so that he could get work when discharged, said Mr Taylor who asked that the sentence be not so long as to deprive him of all prospects of rehabilitation and return to the community as a worth-while citizen.