Police want house

A woman who imported 200 grams of methamphetamine thanks to a jailhouse fixer is fighting to stop police taking her house as a proceed of crime.

Katherine Jane Birkinshaw was jailed for five years and four months in 2016 for offences stemming from her importing 200 grams of methamphetamine.

The Palmerston North mother of four was arrested in May 2014, when police searched her Worcester St house in relation to another matter. They found stolen property, $85,600 cash and 30g of methamphetamine she had hidden in her bra. She was subsequently arrested and given bail.

But she used her time on bail to import methamphetamine, using a supply chain set up by a Rimutaka Prison inmate.

The inmate received $5000 for the deals he helped set up, while Birkinshaw brought 200g of methamphetamine into the country.

When she was sentenced, the fact she agreed to forfeit $165,000 was taken into account.

Details of the police’s reasoning are found in a judgment by Justice David Collins, released this month, declining Birkinshaw’s application to have the police’s court action thrown out.

Birkinshaw has since cleaned out the meth at considerable expense, but is pursuing the Official Assignee for damages.

Meanwhile, further work took place between lawyers to get the settlement sorted.

In March 2018, Birkinshaw’s lawyer, Seth Fraser, said the settlement needed to be renegotiated due to the work done on the house after the traces of meth were found.

That led to police filing to take the house and $86,600 cash.

Fraser said because Birkinshaw’s offer of $165,000 was taken into account when she was sentenced, it should be set in stone.

But the police’s lawyer, Joshua Harvey, said the offer had never been formally agreed to by a judge. Collins agreed, saying proceeds of crime orders were more than just a ‘‘rubber stamping exercise’’.

The case will next be in court in April.