WELL-HEELED HEADHUNTER FACES NEW DRUGS TRIAL

Headhunter Peter Cleven faces a new trial for drug dealing after a jury
failed to agree on verdicts in the High Court at Auckland.

Cleven, a 38-year-old builder of Titirangi, faces charges of supplying
methamphetamine (speed), possessing cannabis for sale and for 12 years
selling cannabis.

The jury was discharged after nine hours' deliberation.

Justice Mark O'Regan remanded Cleven on bail.

Earlier, in his closing address, defence counsel David Jones said Cleven
stood to lose his $1.3 million house, his boat, his motorcycle and his
four-wheel-drive vehicle if convicted.

Mr Jones said the police were out to get his client and strip him of
everything he owned.

"They look at him and say he is scum, he is a Headhunter. He doesn't
deserve that sort of property ... he must have got it from selling drugs.

"They're out to bury him," Mr Jones said.

All Cleven's property was now restrained, with a view to being confiscated
permanently if he is convicted, Mr Jones said.

The Crown's design, he said, was to destroy his client using the Proceeds
of Crime Act.

The comment during his closing address drew an objection from Crown lawyer,
Ross Burns.

Later, in his summing up, Justice O'Regan told the jury that any possible
action under the Proceeds of Crime legislation would be determined in
another court by another judge.

It was not something for them to take into account in evaluating the evidence.

Much of the evidence came from bugged conversations at Cleven's home.

In one conversation with a woman called Simone, Cleven is heard to say that
he used to deal 100lb (45.3kg) of dak (cannabis) a week and had done over
$1 million of "this" a year, which the police say in the context of the
dialogue referred to speed.

Cleven told the jury the conversation concerned only cannabis.

He said that he had been giving advice to Simone, who had been ripped off
by gang members, and had recounted the experience of an acquaintance by way
of illustration, but had stupidly substituted himself.

Mr Burns told the jury in his final address that it was a confession out of
Cleven's own mouth, but Mr Jones said that it was only words and there was
no other evidence of dealing.

"Show me the money," said Mr Jones, noting that 100lb of cannabis had a
street value of up to $500,000.

Mr Burns, appearing with Todd Simmonds, said Cleven had more than $300,000
in unexplained income or expenditure over the previous five years, but Mr
Jones said that the income was more than accounted for.

Mr Jones conceded some of Cleven's sources of income might be illicit -
such as taxing (extracting money from gang associates for supposed
misdeeds) - but none of it came from drugs.

He said that in some ways Cleven was extremely gifted - for example, in his
kauri furniture carving - though in other ways the jury might think him a
"bit of neanderthal."

"He has grafted hard for what he has got, but the police just cannot
swallow that because he is a Headhunter," Mr Jones said.