HEROIN IMPORTER'S JAIL TERM REDUCED

John Charles Dodd, the mastermind of a failed heroin importation which saw
three hapless Australian couriers sent to a Thai jail for 50 years, had his
12-year jail term reduced to 10 years yesterday because the original
sentence was "manifestly excessive".

His right hand man, Prachaya Kavinmethavee, also had his six-year term
reduced to four years, making him eligible for parole next month.

The NSW Court of Appeal found yesterday that District Court Judge Christie
had erred when sentencing Dodd, an unemployed heroin addict of Miranda, and
Kavinmethavee, a Thai national who lived in Newtown and worked as a waiter,
in July 1997.

The court found that although the offence was serious, the amount of heroin
involved was relatively small, unlikely to find its way on the domestic
market, and that Dodd was motivated by his addiction rather than by profit
or greed.

As a result, the trial judge's starting point of 20 years' jail - the
maximum penalty for importing not less than the trafficable quantity of
heroin is 25 years' jail and/or a $100,000 fine - which he reduced to 18
years because Dodd had pleaded guilty was "manifestly excessive". Dodd
eventually received a maximum 12 years' jail and a minimum of nine years.

The Court of Appeal also found the reduction in sentence given to
Kavinmethavee - because he had confessed, pleaded guilty and was
instrumental in the arrest of Dodd - was "grossly inadequate".

Furthermore, the trial judge did not exercise his discretion under
Commonwealth law about the non-parole period given to both men.

The court heard that the three couriers, Lyle Doniger, Deborah Letitia
Spinner and Jane Dawson McKenzie, all from Sydney, had been sentenced to
death for heroin trafficking but the sentences had been commuted to 50
years' jail after they had pleaded guilty to the importation.

The three were arrested in Bangkok in March 1996 while preparing to board a
Sydney-bound flight with heroin stuffed in condoms inside their bodies.
Eighteen condoms had been filled with heroin, but four of them could not be
stuffed into the couriers' bodies, and another one was lost in a taxi on
the way to the airport. Only 10 heroin-filled condoms were recovered.

Dodd and Kavinmethavee were subsequently charged and pleaded guilty to
conspiring with the couriers between January 1996 and March 1996 to import
115 grams of heroin into Australia.

In sentencing the pair, Judge Christie found Dodd had "recruited and
dragooned" the others to bring heroin into Australia but he was not a "Mr
Big".