R v Blowers
[2014] NZHC 3062
•3 December 2014
ORDER PROHIBITING PUBLICATION OF NAME, ADDRESS, OCCUPATION OR IDENTIFYING PARTICULARS OF WITNESS PURSUANT TO S 202 CRIMINAL PROCEDURE ACT 2011.
IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND WHANGAREI REGISTRY
CRI-2013-088-001070 [2014] NZHC 3062
THE QUEEN
v
MICHAEL DAVID BLOWERS
Charges:
Plea: Appearances:
Supplying methamphetamine x1
Theft x1
Guilty
M B Smith for Crown
A Fairley and P J Magee for PrisonerSentenced:
3 December 2014
SENTENCING NOTES OF VENNING J
Solicitors: Crown Solicitor, Whangarei
Thomson Wilson, Whangarei
Copy to: P Hamlin, Whangarei
R v BLOWERS [2014] NZHC 3062 [3 December 2014]
[1] Michael David Blowers, at the age of 51 and with a background of service to the community as a senior police officer you are for sentence on one charge of supplying methamphetamine and one charge of theft.
[2] The agreed summary of facts records that, prior to your resignation in March last year you had served in the New Zealand Police for 21 years. At the time of your resignation you were a Detective Sergeant in the Northland District. In the course of your role with the police you came into contact with a number of informants. One female informant in particular led to your downfall. Your initial legitimate contact with her developed into an inappropriate and intimate relationship. You were instructed by your supervisors as early as 2002 to have no further contact with her. Despite that direction you continued to meet the informant on a personal basis. The frequency of your meetings increased. As a result, an internal police employment investigation commenced in December 2011.
[3] By this time you held the position of officer-in-charge of the Northland Police Organised Crime Unit. You and the Unit were involved in investigations into criminal offending, involving controlled drugs. During the course of those investigations drugs were seized as exhibits for analysis or destruction. You managed and had access to the controlled drugs secured at the police station.
[4] On 17 October 2011 police executed a search warrant at the Burgundy Rose Motel on Kamo Road. Fifty-eight grams of methamphetamine were seized. A small sample was taken to be sent to the ESR for analysis. The remaining methamphetamine was then transferred to a separate bag so the original bag could be analysed for fingerprints. Approximately 56 grams was transferred to that separate bag for storage.
[5] On 19 October 2011 you uplifted the 56 gram bag of methamphetamine from the secure drugs store at the Whangarei Police Station and transferred it to the bulk drug store located in a different area of the police station. At some point you separated approximately 34 grams of methamphetamine from that separate bag and replaced it with rock salt so that it still weighed approximately 56 grams. You then
returned the bag containing the mixture of methamphetamine and rock salt to the original drugs store to disguise your theft.
[6] You also began regularly supplying the female informant with methamphetamine for her to on-sell from time to time. The amounts varied but were generally around one gram. You sourced the methamphetamine provided to her from the drugs you had stolen from the police drug store. Ultimately your relationship with the informant broke down. You constantly pressured her for cash from the sales. The largest single amount of money she paid you was $7,000. She was, however, unable to keep up with the amounts of money you demanded from her for the sales that she was carrying out. At the termination of the offending she believed she owed you in the vicinity of $20,000.
[7] During this time you told her who not to associate with in the criminal community so she could avoid being caught up in investigations or being identified in investigations through her mobile phone use. You were in regular contact with her by telephone or text message.
[8] When you were initially interviewed you admitted you were in a relationship with the informant but denied providing her with drugs.
[9] You went to trial. At the conclusion of the first day of evidence the Crown provided further and new disclosure of additional chain of evidence materials. After taking further advice you then pleaded guilty.
[10] Mr Blowers, you have been married for 24 years. You and your wife have two adult children. You keep good health. Fortunately for you, you retain the support of your wife, your parents and your parents-in-law. A number of other people have provided references in your support, including people of standing in the community. You have played soccer regularly and have a major role in the local association. You have been a positive influence on some of the younger members of the association. Since the charges emerged you have been suffering from anxiety and stress.
[11] You told the probation officer for the purposes of the pre-sentence report that you accept your actions were against what you stood for. But you attempted in some way to explain your offending by saying you took the drugs believing you were protecting your family from perceived threats and out of fear of what gangs were capable of doing to you and your family should you not comply with the requests.
[12] I have to say Mr Blowers that aspect of your explanation does you no credit. You were a senior police officer. You know and would have been well aware of the resources available to the police. You and your family could have been protected. The irresistible inference is that the real reason you took the drugs was because of your relationship with the informant and in order to make money. If you and your family had genuinely been threatened by gangs there were steps the police could and would have taken to protect you and, importantly, your family and you know that.
[13] However you also do properly acknowledge that your actions have humiliated your family by placing them in an emotional and financially strained situation. You will have to cope with and accept the consequences of that for some time. The experienced probation officer reports that you present as remorseful, acknowledging that you have lost the home you had built up with your wife and you have suffered the very public humiliation of a significant personal fall from grace. You have real regret for letting your former colleagues in the police down. You are assessed, realistically in my view, as at a low risk of reoffending.
[14] In sentencing you Mr Blowers as you will know I am required to take account of the purposes and principles of the Sentencing Act. In this case the particularly relevant purposes and principles are to hold you accountable for the harm done to the community by your offending; to denounce your conduct and to deter others from acting in this way.
[15] It is coincidental, but just last week another former police officer Mr Pakau was sentenced for drug and related offending.1 We are fortunate in New Zealand that our police force is widely respected and it is generally regarded as one of the least
corrupt police forces in the western world. The reliance people place on our police
1 R v Pakau [2014] NZHC 3020.
force and the high regard they are properly held in by the public is as a result of the hard work and service of decent and dedicated police officers throughout the country. Actions such as yours endanger that reputation and the trust that members of the community properly have in our police force.
[16] I also take into account:
(a) the gravity of the offending; (b) your personal culpability, and
(c) the seriousness of the charges that you have pleaded guilty to, which is reflected by the terms of imprisonment prescribed by Parliament.
[17] There is not very much difference between the Crown and Mr Fairley as to the appropriate starting point for you. The Crown submit that taking all of the offending together an appropriate starting point leads to a sentence in the region of between six years, six months to seven years, six months or on one analysis, perhaps eight years. Mr Fairley argues responsibly that a starting point of between six and seven years’ imprisonment is open to the Court.
[18] I intend to apply concurrent sentences in the present case. The offending, although different in kind, was connected as the summary of facts records.
[19] In fixing that starting point I take the methamphetamine offending as the lead charge but I also regard the theft charge as a serious one in the circumstances. Your drug offending itself falls within R v Fatu,2 band 2. I have considered the other
authorities referred to by counsel.3
[20] Having regard to those authorities the start point for the methamphetamine offending alone would be a sentence of four and a half years’ imprisonment. That
must be uplifted for the theft. The maximum penalty for theft of items to the value
2 R v Fatu [2006] 2 NZLR 72 (CA).
3 R v Wang [2014] NZCA 409; Pue & Ors v R [2014] NZCA 273; Sarah v R [2013] NZCA 446;
and Knox v Police [2014] NZCA 51.
involved in this case (the drugs) is seven years’ imprisonment. I consider the theft that you were involved in to be serious. It was theft in the course of your employment. It was theft in a situation where the community and your co-workers placed trust in you, and indeed your co-workers looked to you for leadership given your role as the head of the Organised Crime Unit. Your actions involved a very high level of hypocrisy. In the circumstances I consider an uplift of two years, three months is required for the theft offending.
[21] There is then the one last aggravating feature the Court must take into account. That is, that as a result of your actions, the prosecution of the offenders involved in the drug offending discovered at the Burgundy Rose Motel was compromised.
[22] Six months is appropriate for that. That leads to a starting point for sentence of seven years, three months’ imprisonment before taking account of mitigating factors.
[23] In my assessment there are three principal mitigating factors I can properly take account of. First, the fact that before this offending you had served the police and the community and had contributed to that community for a lengthy period of time. The cases are mixed as to whether there should be any credit and the extent of credit the Court can or should give in circumstances where the offending involves a breach of trust by someone in a public office. But I am satisfied that in your case, there should be some recognition for your previous good character and positive
contributions made to the community over a long period of time.4 I consider your
position to be different to that of Pakau for instance. As Mr Fairley submits you served a long time without offending and also I consider Mr Pakau’s offending to be worse.
[24] I also accept you are genuinely remorseful for your actions. For that previous good character, contribution to the community and remorse a reduction of 11 months
is appropriate.
4 R v Findlay [2007] NZCA 553; R v Bailey [1988] 1 NZLR 109 (CA); R v Field HC Auckland
CRI-2007-092-18132, 6 October 2009.
[25] I then apply the discount for the guilty plea. Although the guilty plea was only entered after the trial had started it was entered effectively immediately following the further and very late disclosure by the Crown. If the disclosure had been made earlier I accept the submission that you would have entered a guilty plea at a much earlier stage. I also record that at the time the guilty plea was entered counsel then appearing for the Crown indicated that in the particular and unusual circumstances of this case the Crown would not oppose the 25 per cent reduction sought by Mr Fairley. Given that position I accept a substantial discount for a guilty plea is available to you.
[26] Mr Blowers, please stand. On the charge of supplying methamphetamine you are sentenced to imprisonment for four years, nine months. On the charge of theft you are sentenced to imprisonment for two years, three months. The sentences are concurrent. The effective sentence is four years, nine months.
[27] The Crown offer no evidence in relation to the count of supplying cannabis. You are discharged on that count. Stand down.
Venning J