PAPARUA PRISON OFFICER ACQUITTED ON DRUG CHARGE

A Paparua Prison officer has been acquitted by a Christchurch District
Court jury on charges of taking cannabis to sell to inmates at the jail,
and corruption.

The jury of 11 - one was discharged on the trial's second day because he
knew a witness - took three hours to reach its verdict.

Wayne Forsyth, 43, had been found by police with three highly compressed
rolls of cannabis - a form which enabled inmates to hide the drug
rectally - in his prison uniform jacket as he drove to start work on
July 12 last year.

Prosecutor Kerry White said Forsyth worked in a wing where
three-quarters of random drug tests in the previous six months had been
positive and police had been tipped off he may have been responsible.

Forsyth pleaded guilty to a charge of handling a letter on behalf of an
inmate but denied the corruption and cannabis charges. He claimed soon
after he was arrested that he had found an envelope containing the
cannabis wrapped in two $20 notes in his letterbox that morning and was
in the process of taking them into jail to hand to his superintendent.
He said he must have been set up.

Ms White said Forsyth's evidence did not make sense. By his own account,
he knew from previous drug finds in prison that he ought to preserve the
evidence but had partly unwrapped the cannabis. He had pocketed the
money.

Rupert Glover, defending, said Forsyth had a legal defence to possessing
the drug if he was taking it to the jail to hand to a supervisor.

He said Forsyth's evidence was credible whereas the prosecution case was
characterised by "desperation, presumption, and innuendo".