DPP (NT) v Hennig

In the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory, the Director of Public Prosecutions applied for a restraining order under the Criminal Property Forfeiture Act 2002 against Colin Jonathan Hennig, a person convicted of cultivating a commercial quantity of cannabis. The Court was required to decide whether the applicant had established a basis for the restraining order under section 44(1)(a) of the Criminal Property Forfeiture Act. The applicant had to demonstrate that Hennig was charged, or would be charged within 21 days of the application, with an offence that could lead to him being declared a drug trafficker under section 36A of the Misuse of Drugs Act 2003. The Court held that Hennig could not be declared a drug trafficker under section 36A(3)(b)(ii) of the Misuse of Drugs Act, as it required two prior incidents of offending which were completely separate and dealt with by the court on the one occasion. The Court interpreted section 36A(3)(b)(ii) to mean that the offender must have been found guilty in respect of offences referred to in section 36A(b) arising from two separate previous incidents in the 10 years prior to the commission of the offence. As Hennig's conviction was the second incident, the application for a restraining order was refused.