September 02, 2012

Home detention for drugs sales to officer

By David Clarkson

A mother who was caught up in the police?s Operation Shadow drugs sweep has been given five months of home detention for helping with the sale of methamphetamine to an undercover policeman.

Maryanne Rose Stevens, 33, had admitted the charge of supplying the class A drug and appeared for sentence before Judge Raoul Neave in Christchurch District Court.

Many of the Operation Shadow offenders ? mostly involved with selling the class C drug BZP through the Kronik shop ? have already been sentenced after their arrests in raids in December 2010.

Defence counsel Elizabeth Bulger said Stevens had now kicked her drug habit. She had been involved in the offending because she was associated with the shop, facilitating one drug sale. She had family responsibilities as a mother, and there had been a turn-around in her circumstances since the offending.

Judge Neave said Stevens had acted as a ?broker?, introducing the drugs buyer to the seller for one drugs sale. She was working at the shop and was clearly ?embedded in the lifestyle?.

?You have now beaten the drugs with the support of a loving family and some strength of character by all concerned,? he said.