A neighbourhood dispute in Caversham in which a man was threatened with a loaded shotgun has led to police busting a meth ring and two women being locked up.
Nicole Ashley Tyler (30) was jailed for four and a-half years and Gaylene Lillian McCarthy (51) for three years one month, when they appeared in the Dunedin District Court yesterday.
Tyler was arrested on January 5 last year following an Armed Offenders Squad callout to her Caversham home, the court heard.
After a yelling match with a man visiting her neighbours, the defendant pointed a 12-gauge shotgun only centimetres from the victim’s face.
Armed police found the weapon in the woman’s bedroom along with cannabis, pipes for smoking it, glass methamphetamine pipes, scales and zip-lock bags for dealing.
Subsequent investigations found Tyler had supplied 31g of P, offered to supply 14g of cocaine, sold 60 Ritalin pills and 112g of cannabis during late 2018 and early 2019.
McCarthy also found herself in police cross-hairs.
Initially, she was dealing meth with her partner, selling grams of the class-A drug for $600 and doing a significant amount of business in Dunedin.
Phone communications intercepted by police revealed discussions about cash sums up to $30,000.
When the pair broke up in early 2019, McCarthy’s illicit trade continued.
Business was booming to such an extent she was unable to meet customers’ demands, the court heard.
On March 29 last year, police raided McCarthy’s home.
The evidence of large-scale drug-dealing was obvious.
Officers found 9.3g of methamphetamine divided into smaller amounts, digital scales, plastic deal bags and $2100 in cash.
According to court documents, over a near-four-month period, McCarthy could have supplied up to $150,000 of meth.
Police also found photos of the woman posing with a semi-automatic shotgun.
The pair would have been facing longer in prison had it not been for a recent Court of Appeal decision that allowed discounted sentences for those whose drug addiction had driven their offending.
Judge Michael Crosbie said both defendants fell into that category.
McCarthy, he noted, had required a medically assisted detoxification.
She also received time off her sentence because her physically and psychologically traumatic relationship had a role to play in her descent.
Tyler had undergone counselling for her drug addiction but her time on remand had not run smoothly, the court heard.
Along with the raft of drugs charges, she also admitted injuring with intent to injure from November 3, when she attacked a fellow inmate in the recreation yard at Christchurch Women’s Prison.
Tyler grabbed her victim by the hair, kneed her twice in the head, then followed it up with 11 “uppercut punches” and kicks to the body, leaving the woman with a broken nose.
Judge Crosbie stressed that while the defendants might have thought they knew their clientele, they did not know the harm the drugs did once they were in the community.
A man, also on an array of drug charges, is yet to be dealt with by the court.
