The well-known Auckland professional man involved in serious drug-related crime was given a brief reprieve in his desperate nearly two-year fight to keep his name secret.He continues to work in the Auckland area with members of his profession, and the pub
The well-known Auckland professional man involved in serious drug-related crime was given a brief reprieve in his desperate nearly two-year fight to keep his name secret.
He continues to work in the Auckland area with members of his profession, and the public, ignorant of his involvement in the crime.
Justice Rebecca Ellis yesterday refused to grant the 65-year old leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal her decision last week lifting name suppression on the man and a female co-accused.
Justice Ellis said no question of law was raised in the application for leave to appeal but gave the man until 4 pm on Friday April 30 to apply for special leave to appeal.
As National Business Review has earlier reported, the man was originally charged along with the woman and Nicholas Henry Voerman with a serious drugs-related crime.
The crime, along with the man and woman’s names, occupations and relationship, have been suppressed since their arrest in July 2008.
Voerman pleaded guilty to the crime earlier this year and was sentenced to 12 months in jail, to be served at the same time as a three year sentence imposed last September after he admitted large scale trafficking in the drug Ecstacy.
The woman eventually changed her plea to guilty and was convicted and fined $10,000 in February.
The man was discharged under s347 of the Crimes Act after winning a legal point on the admissibility of hearsay evidence, namely records of intercepted conversations in which reference was made to the man but to which he was not a party.
Crown prosecutor Kieran Raftery rejected a defence lawyer’s submissions that the man should be in a “special category” to get suppression because he was discharged, saying there was no such “special regime.”
