Drug and money stash to ‘help family’

A forestry worker who buried a stash of guns, drugs and money in his backyard turned to dealing to help support his family, a court has heard.

Police found nearly $6000 in a buried bucket, along with two loaded pistols and ammunition, bags of cannabis and a set of scales, when they searched Todd Gordon Brooking’s Palmerston North home in March.

Brooking, 42, was sentenced to nine months’ home detention and 400 hours’ community work for drugs and firearms charges in the Palmerston North District Court on Monday.

In a statement read out by Judge Gerard Lynch, Brooking said he’d been dealing to top up his income as a full-time forestry worker to help family and friends out of their respective money problems.

Some of what was left over was also donated to charities, he said.

Brooking said he was sorry and he’d be disappointed if any of his three children followed in his footsteps.

He wanted to set a better example for them in future, he said.

Lynch said although there was only a relatively small amount of cannabis found in Brooking’s stash, there was enough to establish it was inventory to sell and not just for personal use.

Lynch said firearms and drugs were a grave combination, and he didn’t believe a claim made by Brooking that the guns were unrelated to his drug dealing.

Brooking’s former employer described him as a hard and reliable worker and promised that a job would be waiting for him.