COURT TOLD OF BUGS USE TO CRACK 'RING'

HAMILTON - Police wired a house and used telephone bugs and
surveillance cameras in a two-month operation to crack an alleged
Waikato drug ring, the High Court at Hamilton has heard.

Twelve people were arrested last June during Operation Ring when
police seized from various Hamilton houses 150g of cocaine, with an
estimated street value of $25,000, along with $60,000 in cash.

Yesterday, one of the Waikato's biggest drug trials began when seven
of those arrested appeared before Justice Penlington and a jury on 45
charges of dealing in drugs and one charge of unlawful possession of a
firearm.

Crown prosecutor Ross Douch told the court that police had placed
listening devices in the Hamilton house and bugged a telephone and a
cellphone shared by two of the accused, Jeffery Paul Sutton, an
unemployed 42-year-old, and Rachel Lisa Andrews, a 27-year-old
beneficiary.

Police were also able to set up a camera undetected across from the Te
Rapa Rd house.

This was used to provide a photographic record of those arriving to
purchase drugs during a month-long surveillance of the property, which
began in April last year.

The recorded conversations and photographs led to a dozen arrests
after police swooped on a number of properties on June 23.

Sutton and Andrews face 30 charges of possessing and supplying
cocaine, LSD and cannabis, and one charge of unlawfully possessing a
pistol.

They other five defendants in the trial are Joel Ernest Sutton, 20,
unemployed of Christchurch, Stephven John Cotter, 40, unemployed of
Auckland, David Stanley Brown, 33, a truck driver of Hastings, Stacey
Anne Nevill, 28, a sickness beneficiary of Hamilton, and Trevor Dion
Tye, 35, unemployed of Hamilton.

They all face similar charges.

All of the accused have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The trial will continue next week and is expected to last four weeks.