Auckland Taxi-Driver For Trial On Drug Charges

Press, Volume C, Issue 29516, 18 May 1961, Page 18

Auckland Taxi-Driver For Trial On Drug Charges

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, May 17.

A screw - topped jar wrapped in newspaper was handed to a prospective client, a plain-clothes constable. by Donald Michael O’Loughlin, aged 25, a taxidriver, in his kitchen on April 20, so that the client could examine the contents, an Indian drug, before he bought some, the Auckland Magistrate’s Court heard today from Constable H. Burden.

O’Loughlin was committed to the Supreme Court for trial by Messrs P. H. G. Lavie and W. Giltrap, justices of the Peace, on four charges—selling a dangerous drug, having a dangerous drug in his possession, and two charges of being idle and disorderly in that he had a deleterious drug about his person.

O’Loughlin pleaded not guilty to all charges. Letter of Introduction

Constable Burden said that on the night of April 19 he met a girl at the Heaven and Hell Restaurant, who gave him a letter of introduction to O’Loughlin. He showed the letter to O'Loughlin in the kitchen at the latter’s home the next morning.

O’Loughlin made no query and left the room briefly, returning with a large jar wrapped in newspaper. and which contained a quantity of seeds.

Constable Burden said he pretended to examine the seeds and then filled a brown-paper bag with half of the seeds in the jar. He said he would test the seeds and if they were satisfactory he would return and take the remainder. He paid O'Loughlin £5 and took the bag of seeds to the police station. Special Duties Branch

Constable D. T. Brotherton gave evidence that a Special Duties branch squad searched O’Loughlin’s house two days later, and a jar wrapped in newspaper was found through a ceiling trapdoor in a cavity nearby. O’Loughlin at first denied all knowledge of the jar and seeds, but later at the police station admitted he had gained possession of them at the end of February, and had left them in the ceiling where they were found. He had taken them

down only once, the previous Thursday, and sold some to another man. Accused had asked whether this man was a policeman, or had he been picked up by the police and informed them, said Constable Bretherton.

He told the police the seeds were locally grown, and were last year’s crop. He believed the seeds were worth about £3OO, but he was content to sell them for a few pounds because he had got them for nothing.

Accused told the police the name of the person from whom he had obtained the seeds—which the Government Analyst later tested, and identified as the suspected Indian drag.