Cops go after assets despite search warrant fail
A Taupo hunter who got off cannabis growing charges due to ‘‘sloppy’’ police work is fighting to keep $1 million in assets in a landmark case before the Supreme Court.
Karl Marwood was let off a charge of growing and supplying cannabis after a court ruled that a warrant used by police to search his house was ‘‘unlawfully’’ obtained.
Police are now seeking to use a law which allows them to apply to seize assets where there is evidence someone has benefited from ‘‘significant criminal activity’’ even if they have been discharged, or if charges were never laid.
Marwood’s lawyer, Mark Ryan, is arguing that the evidence of the criminal activity should be ruled inadmissable because the search warrant breached his rights and was already ruled ‘‘unlawful’’.
Marwood was arrested in July 2010 after a police officer swore an affidavit in support of an appli- cation for a search warrant of Marwood’s home.
The officer swore that a third party had received a phone call on his home phone. The man’s phone number was similar to that of the Taupo Police Station.
The caller asked whether he was speaking with ‘‘the police’’. The man replied ‘‘yes’’, mistakenly thinking that the caller was from the police.
The caller told the man: ‘‘I can’t tell you who I am... Karl has marijuana plants growing on the back of the property.’’
The man then reported the phone call to police.
Police found that Marwood had previous convictions for supplying cannabis, and used the phone conversation as the basis for a search warrant application.
When police searched the home on July 6, 2010 they found thousands of germinating seeds, growing plants, and nearly 3kg of dried cannabis. Marwood was charged, but before the case went to trial his lawyer successfully argued that the search warrant was unlawful.
Judge Josephine Bouchier ruled that the application for the warrant was flawed. Although she found police had not acted in bad faith, their actions were ‘‘sloppy’’.
Despite the criminal case being thrown out, police pursued a civil case under the Criminal Proceeds of Recovery Act 2009, looking to seize Marwood’s home and money in two bank accounts.
In August 2014, a High Court judge found that the evidence had already been excluded ‘‘for good reason’’ in the criminal case against Marwood, and to use it in the civil case breached his rights. However, police went to the Court of Appeal and won.
Ryan, who took the case to the Supreme Court last month, said that if successful, it would set a precedent in New Zealand law.