Review of the Police Powers (Drug Premises) Act 2001 - NSW ...

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7.2.2. Characteristics of drug premises in Cabramatta in the late 1990s According to police, drug premises could often be distinguished from other units and houses by the presence of overt, heavy security. A former Cabramatta Crime Manager noted that the doors of these premises were the significant feature: They were very, very heavy steel, you couldn’t lift them up, not like normal security grills that you get on your front door, even the best made product … they were heavily gauged steel… the mesh was such that it was one way ... you couldn’t see in but you could see out. They often had three to four actual bolts drilled in to the cement rendering around the unit doors, usually three to four. 569 According to police, these premises presented particular difficulties in drug investigations. One difficulty is being able to identify who is conducting drug transactions from the premises when it is not possible to see the person engaging in the transaction. A common strategy in drug investigations is to conduct controlled buys from premises to get evidence that drug supply is taking place. This involves undercover police attending premises to purchase drugs. 570 At the LAC level, these drug purchases may involve several buys on different occasions of foils or caps of heroin for about fifty dollars each. The following extract from a COPS event narrative is an example of a controlled buy in which the problem outlined above arose: The operative knocked on the door of the unit. A male person from within the unit then spoke to the operative through a closed timber door. As a result of the conversation between the operative and the male person, the operative passed a pre-recorded $50 note under the door to the unit. A small plastic resealable bag containing an off white powder substance was then passed from within the unit, under the timber door to the operative. Police will allege that the off white powder is a prohibited drug, cocaine. At no time was the operative able to view the male person who supplied the prohibited drug, for identification purposes. 571 In situations like this, because police are unable to see who is conducting the drug transaction, they are unable to gather sufficient evidence against a person to lay a charge of drug supply. For police, another difficulty posed by fortified premises is the disposal of illicit drugs before police enter the premises. Police Rescue are often called upon when search warrant teams require assistance to gain entry to premises. They may be required to cut through metal doors or bars before the search warrant team can enter. Police have told us that in such instances, prior to the commencement of the Drug Premises Act, they often found evidence of drug supply, but were unable to lay charges against the occupants of the premises because no actual drugs were located. As a former Crime Manager from Cabramatta LAC noted: We’d execute the search warrant, and yes we’d use rescue squad, we’d tear doors off, and we’d get into the premises and we’d find anything up to seven or eight people, empty house, paraphernalia, money but no drugs. So often at the end of the day we’d walk away with a door, and not much else. 572 7.2.3. Objectives of the Drug Premises Act in Cabramatta One of the main objectives of the drug premises legislation was to enable police to lay charges in instances such as those above, against people found on premises at which drug related activity was taking place, but where no drugs were found. In the course of our review, a number of police identified the fact that police could now lay charges in these situations as a key strength of the legislation. Our research findings suggest that the Drug Premises Act has enabled police to lay charges against people on premises in Cabramatta where police have been previously unable to do so. 7.3. Frequency of the use of the Act in Cabramatta In Cabramatta, the Act was used on 34 premises and three vehicles during the review period. 573 The frequency of the use of the Act in Cabramatta was high compared with other parts of the state. The Greater Metropolitan Region as a whole, which includes Cabramatta, used the Drug Premises Act far more often than other regions. The graph below shows the number of times the Act was used in Cabramatta, in the Greater Metropolitan Region (excluding Cabramatta), in all other regional commands, and by the State Crime Command. 569 Interview, former crime manager, Cabramatta LAC, 21 August 2003. 570 These “controlled buys” are conducted under the authority of the Law Enforcement (Controlled Operations) Act 1997. 571 COPS event narrative, Cabramatta LAC, Drug Premises Incident 4. 572 Interview, former crime manager, Cabramatta LAC, 21 August 2003. 573 These figures include uses of the Act by both the Cabramatta LAC A and by the Greater Hume TAG. In the first year, drug premises charges were laid in connection with 22 premises and two cars, in the second year, charges were laid in connection with 12 premises and two cars. 108 NSW Ombudsman Review of the Police Powers (Drug Premises) Act 2001
No. of Drug Premises Figure 14: Numbers of identified drug premises Cabramatta LAC, NSW Police Regions and State Crime Command, 1 July 2001- 30 June 2003 50 40 30 20 10 0 37 Cabramatta 42 Greater Metropolitan 16 Inner Metropolitan State Crime Command (1) Southern Region Northern Region Number of Identified Drug Premises in Cabramatta LAC, and in Other Region Commands 7.3.1. Charges laid under the Drug Premises Act in Cabramatta Western Region Source: COPS event narratives. (1) Included in the State Crime Command figure is one incident in which Special Crime and Internal Affairs (SCIA) used the Drug Premises Act Police in Cabramatta also laid a high proportion of the charges that were laid under the Drug Premises Act across the state. Over the review period, 81 of the 220 of the charges State-wide for the offence of being found on, entering or leaving drug premises were laid in Cabramatta. In addition, 22 of the 108 charges for the offence of allow premises to be used as a drug premises, and 13 of the 66 charges for organise, conduct or assist in organising or conducting drug premises were laid in Cabramatta. A total of 118 people were charged under the Drug Premises Act in Cabramatta during the review period. Data on the demographic characteristics of people who were charged is set out later in this chapter. In addition, on some occasions when police used the Drug Premises Act in Cabramatta, they also laid charges under the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act against people found on drug premises for various drug offences. Police laid 52 charges for supply offences, and 25 charges for possession of a prohibited drug, against people who were found on drug premises in the area. Of the 118 people charged under the Drug Premises Act in Cabramatta during the review period, half of those, 59, were charged solely with a drug premises offence, and not with offences under the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act, such as possession or supply. While drugs were found in 70% of the incidents in which the Act was used in Cabramatta, in some of these instances, police 18 12 9 7 were unable to lay charges for drug offences like supply. Therefore, the Act has enabled police to lay drug premises charges in instances where they have been unable to lay charges for other drug offences. 7.3.2. Applying for drug premises search warrants In the following section, an overview of how police used the Act in Cabramatta will be provided, outlining sources of information on drug premises, and the process of applying for drug premises search warrants. 7.3.3. Intelligence on drug premises Intelligence was gathered about drug premises in Cabramatta from a variety of sources including police on patrol, community sources, surveillance of premises and covert operations. A common community source of information on drug premises has been neighbours making complaints to police. One senior officer we interviewed described the community as very forthcoming in providing information to police about drug premises. 574 In the following excerpt from a court case in which charges under the Drug Premises Act were heard, a police officer was asked to describe the sources of the information police had on one particular drug premises: A: Well it was based on intelligence reports that we had at Cabramatta, intelligence holdings that’s from people ringing the police station to complain about the activities of the house. Q: For example A:. That there’s drug dealing from the house. My next door- the person across the road is dealing drugs, a person up the road is dealing drugs, that sort of stuff. Checks on the people that were believed to live there, which was [person’s name], looking at his criminal history and just general observations. 575 According to Cabramatta police who we spoke to about the Act, addicts and offenders also provided another source of information about the location of drug premises. 576 For example, when police are conducting surveillance on a house, drug users who attend the premises may be questioned by police after they have left. Another method used by police in Cabramatta to establish the location of drug premises was what police have called the ant trail, referred to above. Police would observe drug users as they set out from the railway or other parts of the suburb and follow them to drug houses. One detective recalled that 574 Interview, former crime manager, Cabramatta LAC, 21 August 2003. 575 Liverpool Local Court, Police v. Tula Ong, Nhep Siv and Simean Sim, 11 June 2003, p. 13. 576 Focus group, Cabramatta police, 2 July 2003. NSW Ombudsman Review of the Police Powers (Drug Premises) Act 2001 109
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Review of the Police Powers (Drug P
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Contents Preface ..................
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Chapter 11. Drug move-on powers in
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Acknowledgements This report was re
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Part One. Background. Chapter 1. In
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Drug offences, unlike for example,
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elieve is in a public place with th
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Chapter 2. Methodology In this chap
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2.3.5. Health data NSP distribution
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As the table indicates, more than o
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2.4.7. Complaints The NSW Ombudsman
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NSW Police advised us that calculat
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Another data limitation is that COP
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Chapter 3. Legislative survey This
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Once police have entered the suspec
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The table below sets out the penalt
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(c) that the nature and extent of t
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The Act contains four additional in
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A fortification removal notice is r
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For example, section 39(3) of the Q
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Part Two. Drug premises Chapter 4.
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In the police training manual on th
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Case study 2. Drug premises search
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4.2.4. Presenting the application b
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A Crime Manager we interviewed from
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applications. In this Act, an inves
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Chapter 5. The definition of drug p
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5.2. Recommendation That Parliament
Page 57 and 58: 5.5.2. Section 11(2)(b): fortificat
Page 59 and 60: In our chapter on Cabramatta, we di
Page 61 and 62: The woman was found guilty of allow
Page 63 and 64: 5.5.5. Means or devices for drug us
Page 65 and 66: Number of Premises Figure 7. Razor
Page 67 and 68: However, no other evidence of drug
Page 69 and 70: • magnum revolver and a 0.357 mag
Page 71 and 72: 5.5.8. Section 11(2)(g): large amou
Page 73 and 74: The magistrate noted that there wer
Page 75 and 76: In relation to the money located on
Page 77 and 78: 5.7.6. Cars as drug premises As we
Page 79 and 80: … rather than being on the edge o
Page 81 and 82: Chapter 6. The Drug Premises Act -
Page 83 and 84: • the offence of being found on,
Page 85 and 86: With reverse onus, we didn’t have
Page 87 and 88: In the following section, we will d
Page 89 and 90: Officers from the State Crime Comma
Page 91 and 92: The second reading speech, which gi
Page 93 and 94: In the granny flat, police found ca
Page 95 and 96: Table 6. Pleas entered and court ou
Page 97 and 98: The magistrate said that he had a r
Page 99 and 100: 13. Allowing use of premises as dru
Page 101 and 102: The defendant says he was not there
Page 103 and 104: Figure 13: Ages of people charged w
Page 105 and 106: Table 12. Number of charges for var
Page 107: Chapter 7. Cabramatta 7.1. Introduc
Page 111 and 112: Table 13. Information about drug pr
Page 113 and 114: It should be clear that this legisl
Page 115 and 116: The unit was in disarray, with spar
Page 117 and 118: 7.5. Level of drug supply the law i
Page 119 and 120: 7.5.3 Firearms, weapons and high le
Page 121 and 122: 7.6. Charges laid under the Drug Pr
Page 123 and 124: 7.6.4. Young Asian people and drug
Page 125 and 126: Of these 52 people, 31 people pled
Page 127 and 128: 7.8. Conclusion: Impact of the Drug
Page 129 and 130: By way of comment, the continuing a
Page 131 and 132: Chapter 8. Targeting drug supply Pa
Page 133 and 134: Table 18. Drug Misuse and Trafficki
Page 135 and 136: Low level drug suppliers are more l
Page 137 and 138: Other forms of organisation in evid
Page 139 and 140: Table 19. Drugs Located, State-wide
Page 141 and 142: Table 23. Drugs located, Northern R
Page 143 and 144: However, the submission concluded b
Page 145 and 146: To begin with, telephone intercepts
Page 147 and 148: The prohibited drugs that were loca
Page 149 and 150: One factor that appears to have per
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