DRUG COP TELLS COURT HE WAS WORKING UNDER COVER

A policeman caught selling ecstasy has told a Sydney court he was
trying to ingratiate himself to underworld types during a lone
investigation into the death of a colleague.

Snared in an internal affairs sting last September, Senior Constable
Craig Raymond was subsequently charged with the ongoing supply of a
prohibited drug.

He later pleaded guilty to selling 160 of the so-called party pills to
an undercover detective at a Sydney nightclub.

A raid on his flat led to the seizure of a further 846 tablets, with
the estimated combined value of the haul put at almost $33,000.

Raymond, 30, today conceded that he had already been dealing for "a
couple of months" before being caught.

He had been forced into procuring larger and larger amounts of the
drug by a person threatening to expose his identity as a police
officer, he told District Court Judge Anne Ainslie-Wallace.

But he also conceded that in the end, he was using some of the ecstasy
himself to escape depression.

"I honestly couldn't say what my frame of mind was at that time,"
Raymond told the court.

"It wasn't what I set out to do ... it just happened and I wasn't able
to pull myself out of it."

Raymond said he had first been drawn to the drug scene by a belief
that there had been a police cover-up in relation to the death of his
former police partner, Clinton Moller.

Arrested in New Zealand after failing to appear at the Wood Royal
Commission into police corruption, Moller was eventually sentenced to
eight months jail for contempt in 1996.

Although he was due for release in July the following year, the former
Bondi constable was also facing ecstasy and amphetamines charges.

On April 12, his body was found hanging from the doorframe of his
prison cell.

Raymond had regrettably been instrumental in helping bring the charges
against his mate, he told the court today.

However, he had suspicions about the veracity of the investigation
into the death and decided to launch his own probe.

This consisted of posing as a drug dealer among people he thought
might shed light on the tragedy.

The pre-sentence hearing continues.