A Northland couple who attracted attention for breaking travel rules during last year’s Delta lockdown were found to have cash, methamphetamine and weapons when police searched their car.

Shayde Going and Detroit Martin were sentenced to 10 and eight months’ home detention, respectively, when they appeared in the Kaikohe District Court on August 25 on drugs, firearms and offensive weapons charges.

They were also charged with breaching a Covid-19 order.

According to the summary of facts, on August 22 last year police spotted a black BMW parked on Recreation Rd in Kaikohe.

The country had been plunged into a level 4 lockdown just a few days earlier, and when the car was stopped at a checkpoint near Warkworth the previous night the couple assured police they were heading home to their bail address in Whangārei.

Instead they drove to Kaikohe where they spent the night in their car.

When police approached the BMW they could smell cannabis so they invoked a search warrant. In a Gucci purse they found two containers of methamphetamine weighing a total of 54.2g.

They also found cash, a set of scales, cannabis, a machete, a hunting knife and a .22-calibre rifle.

More meth, ammunition and drug-making ingredients were found in a North Shore motel room where they had stayed previously.

In sentencing the couple, Judge Brandt Shortland said the point bags, cash and drug equipment, as well as travel back and forth between Auckland and Northland, showed they were running a commercial methamphetamine operation, albeit a low-level one.

“Particularly in Northland methamphetamine is an absolute scourge on the community. It filters down to every single facet of society. Not a day goes by when this court doesn’t deal with methamphetamine offending.”

Judge Shortland said he had to hold the couple to account, but he also had to consider their rehabilitation needs and impose the least restrictive sentence possible.

An aggravating feature was that the offending occurred during a nationwide Covid-19 lockdown.

He said Going had four children, one of those with Martin, and was battling issues in her past.

Martin, who was just 19, had a difficult upbringing in a P house but could be rehabilitated.

After reducing an initial jail term for their guilty pleas, remorse and other factors, Judge Shortland arrived at an end sentence of 10 months’ home detention for Going and eight months for Martin, due to his lack of previous criminal history.

He ordered the seizure of $724.30 cash and the destruction of drugs, equipment and weapons.

Martin had little family support and few other options so he allowed the couple to serve their sentences at the same South Auckland address.

“But the moment there are difficulties you can guarantee you will be separated out … It’s now up to you. You are being given an opportunity. Grasp it.”