Standen used cop info in scheme: Court told

Source "The Age" Katelyn John April 3, 2009

Disgraced former cop Mark Standen used his "special knowledge" as one of NSW's top crime fighters in an alleged drug conspiracy, a Sydney court has heard.

Crown prosecutor Tim Game, SC, said Standen was far from "an innocent" in the conspiracy to import up to 600 kilograms of pseudoephedrine - a precursor to the drug ice - due to be shipped to Australia inside a container of rice from Pakistan.

The former senior NSW Crime Commission officer regularly called Customs authorities to ask about what drugs were coming in and from what countries.

Advertisement: Story continues below
"It's not as though we're talking about a person who was blind - he knew what he was doing," Mr Game told a committal hearing at Sydney's Central Local Court on Friday.

"(He was) using his special knowledge as a senior officer."

Standen, 51, was arrested in June last year along with alleged co-conspirator Bakhos Jalalaty, 45, after a two-year federal investigation spanning three continents.

Despite the container arriving in April last year with no trace of the chemical, he was charged with conspiring to import and supply a large quantity of the ice precursor and conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

But Mr Game said the prosecution only had to prove Standen intended to import pseudoephedrine, not that he was actually successful in the bid.

"We can raise an inference that's ultimately capable of proving the case beyond reasonable doubt his intention to participate in an agreement to import pseudoephedrine," he said.

Standen will spend at least another two months in solitary confinement after the matter was adjourned to give Magistrate Julie Huber and defence barrister Gordon Elliot time to read newly tendered documents.

The hearing will continue in the same court on June 10.