Dealer’s message to court sewn onto suit

A convicted synthetic drugs dealer claims her product was safe – a message embroidered on the pant suit she wore to her sentencing.

Fei He was the head of the synthetic cannabis network based around a Sockburn dairy that was busted in the police’s Operation Sin investigation in May 2016.

The 48-year-old’s actions resulted in the sentencing being only partly heard yesterday, but Christchurch District Court Judge Stephen O’Driscoll will impose the sentences on three defendants early today, after Fei He has a chance to have the Crown submissions and the pre-sentence report translated for her.

She dismissed the lawyers she had at her trial in June, and would not co-operate with the lawyer then assigned to her. She told Judge O’Driscoll she did not want legal representation, but she had not read the documents.

A Mandarin Chinese interpreter was in court for the sentencing and Fei He was released on bail overnight but not allowed to leave the courthouse until the translation had been done for her.

She headed a synthetic cannabis operation that the Crown said involved drugs with a street value of up to $4 million.

Fei He disrupted the proceedings before the sentencing session began. She tried to hand out flyers making allegations against police, which were removed and destroyed, and she wore a suit with the message on the back: ‘‘Police Operation Sin. We Protect Life.’’

When she would not stop calling out from the public gallery, court security threatened to put her in custody. She was then quiet.

She has previously claimed the product the group was distributing was safe and it was synthetic products sold by others that had injured and killed people.

The trial in June was stopped after seven days. The three people still on trial pleaded guilty to charges of selling or supplying non-approved psychoactive substances, which police alleged had taken place over 20 months, and the Crown dropped money laundering charges. Two others pleaded guilty and were dealt with earlier in the trial process.

The Crown said delaying tactics by the defendants had put the trial in jeopardy, but defence lawyers rejected that claim.

For Sui Jun Zhou, 34, Anselm Williams acknowledged his client was a reasonably successful streetlevel dealer. It was accepted the offending was commercial and on a reasonably large scale. The Crown’s financial figures were speculative and were not accepted.

As the trial began, he admitted charges of unlawful possession of a Taser gun and a firearm.

Williams asked the judge to allow a home detention term.

For Xiwen Miao, a 30-year-old chef, Trudi Aickin said he was ‘‘a naive worker bee’’ who had been on restrictive bail conditions for a long period. She urged a home detention sentence be granted.

Aickin said the base product of the drug was not illegal in New Zealand. Damiana was used by Chinese people for medicinal purposes and it was only once chemicals and processes were applied that it became synthetic cannabis.

For the Crown, prosecutor Karyn South said it had been serious offending involving a record amount of synthetic product. She said Fei He was the head of the network, Zhou was a lieutenant, and Miao was ‘‘more naive’’ and the least culpable.

All are on bail pending today’s sentencing.