Son blamed for BZP offences
A 61-year-old Christchurch man has blamed his son – who has already served a jail term for drug dealing – for the party pills police found in a series of raids that ended their Operation Nebraska investigation in 2013.
Bags of the BZP pills, which were banned in 2008, were found when the police several locations including Hugh James Robinson’s address, car, and a lock-up he rented.
The Crown spent all last week presenting its evidence that Robinson was in possession of party pills and powder that would have been worth up to $240,000 if it had been sold on the streets, and that his High Performance Health business in Sydenham was regularly receiving unexplained cash deposits by Robinson into its bank account.
The defence began presentation of its case today on the sixth day of the trial before Judge Alistair Garland a jury in the Christchurch District Court.
Robinson denies charges of conspiracy to sell the class C drug BZP, four charges of possessing the drug for sale, and unlawful possession of the sawn-off shotgun and 115 twelve-gauge shotgun shells.
Defence counsel Richard Maze told the jury several defence witnesses would be called, including Robinson, and his son Jamie Daniel Robinson, 29.
Mr Maze told the trial that High Performance Health had previously destroyed substances as required, by burning them on a North Canterbury farm.
When the time came to dispose of the remaining BZP pills, Hugh Robinson had asked Jamie to take them to North Canterbury and destroy them.
“That young man, who had just been given a fairly large quantity of a popular recreational drug, didn’t do it, but he hid this from his father. His father really had no reason to think it hadn’t been done until years later when the police came and searched the properties.”
Jamie Robinson had kept it for years, used it, shared it with friends, and sold some of it. He bought his own pill press and started making short runs of pills at the business when his father was not around. “And largely, he lived it up,” said Mr Maze.
Jamie Robinson had also accepted the shotgun and ammunition found at the lock-up, as payment for a drug debt.
Later, it was Jamie who sold BZP to a Wellington man who had other dealings with the health food and supplements firm. Then pills were exchanged for methamphetamine, which Jamie sold behind his father’s back.
Mr Maze said Hugh Robinson did not go to the lock-up in Russley Road where some of the drugs were found, but Jamie did.
Hugh eventually found pills that his son had hidden in his garage. He took some of them to his office, thinking they must have been ones he had manufactured legally years before, intending to use them himself. He had no intention to sell them.
The company had manufactured synthetic cannabis when it was legal, but had eventually decided to stop that. Other money had come from cash and goods brought back from Russia on trips by Hugh Robinson’s wife, Svetlana, which had then been sold. This had included artworks by Picasso and Salvador Dali. They had been sold for cash, which had been paid into the business’ account.
Mr Maze said Jamie Robinson had eventually pleaded guilty to drug charges and had been sentenced to a jail term. He was now out on parole.
Hugh Robinson’s trial is continuing.
Category: Focus
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