Claims that Waikato police were corrupt and planted evidence during a drugs bust are baseless and without foundation, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
The claims were made in the Hamilton District Court late last year during the trial of Ross Williams, Darryl Abraham, Douglas Williams, Darryl Williams and Hayden Abraham. The group were charged with running a cannabis-growing operation after police found extensive cannabis plots on land at Kereta on the Coromandel Peninsula in 2002. The five plots were on DOC land and were adjacent to land owned and occupied by Ross Williams.
The group appealed their convictions and sentences on a number of points, but primarily on the basis that police investigating the case were corrupt and had planted evidence at the scene.
In a reserved judgment released yesterday, Court of Appeal Justices Hammond, Williams and Gendall dismissed all the appeals against conviction and sentence.
The judgment says that during the trial, defence lawyers for the group made "vigorous" allegations of police corruption, perjury and planting of evidence.
"The allegations of improper conduct by the police were serious . . . . On our assessment of all the evidence, we cannot see any basis for such allegations. They are simply baseless claims made in an attempt by the appellants to explain away damning evidence, or the implications of certain exhibits. No evidence was adduced or elicited before the jury, to provide any foundation for the allegations."
Waikato police crime manager Detective Inspector Peter Devoy said police welcomed the judgment and felt vindicated by the court's ruling.
"Allegations such as these cut right to the heart of policing and many of our staff took these allegations personally. Police work tirelessly to catch offenders and put them before the courts and it is disheartening to say the least when defence counsel resort to this type of behaviour in defence of their clients.
"The allegations were total fabrications, but we were publicly labelled as corrupt and incompetent police. It's very difficult for police to fight back from that sort of low blow."
Mr Devoy said it was unusual for the Court of Appeal to come out so strongly in their judgment.
"Of course the defence does not have to give evidence, but claims of police corruption and planting of evidence, to be made responsibly, require some evidential foundation and none existed," the judgment said.