A 46-year-old man who turned his partner's Housing Tasmania unit into a clandestine meth lab will be up for the $29,500 cost of decontaminating the unit, the Supreme Court heard.
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Stephen Charles Hipworth formerly of Newnham pleaded guilty to manufacturing a controlled precursor with the aim of manufacturing a controlled drug for sale between July 7 and July 30, 2020.
Hipworth manufactured the precursor pseudoephedrine with the intention of selling methylamphetamine.
Crown prosecutor Matt Hills said police raided a unit in Parklands Parade, Newnham on July 30, 2020 and found Hipworth wearing a head torch and standing over a stove working with a baking tray.
Police found the unit full of precursor chemicals including pseudoephedrine, hypophosphorous acid, hydroiodic acid, bottles of acetone and 250 tablets used in the manufacture of methylamphetamine [ice] but found no ice.
His then partner Georgina Rose Bourke, 46 had been in the unit for seven months and Hipworth moved in four months before the raid.
Mr Hills said Hipworth told police he was using information from the internet to experiment with making methylamphetamine.
He claimed he was producing it for personal use.
However, Mr Hills said it was the state's case that Hipworth was manufacturing controlled precursor with the intention of selling methylamphetamine.
He said that Hipworth had prior drug offences going back to 2008 in Victoria and Tasmania and also some firearms offences.
Mr Hills sought that Hipworth pay the cost af analysis of $6623 and the decontamination of the Housing Tasmania unit.
Defence counsel Mark Doyle said sought that Hipworth be considered for an alternative to an actual jail sentence including a drug treatment order.
The court heard that Bourke received an eight months' home detention order.
He said Hipworth had become homeless because of Bourke's home detention order and a suitable address would be a barrier to his home detention.
Justice Robert Pearce said that his view of sentencing was that he would not seek a drug treatment assessment and that a wholly suspended sentence was inadequate punishment.
"Mr Hipworth you have heard how seriously I regard this," he said.
"I will order an assessment about your suitability for a home detention order although there a few hurdles for that."
He adjourned the case for sentence on February 2, 2024.
Nick Clark
I am the Supreme and Magistrates Court reporter for The Examiner. My journalism career has clicked over 34 years and encompasses four different spells at Tasmanian newspapers.
I am the Supreme and Magistrates Court reporter for The Examiner. My journalism career has clicked over 34 years and encompasses four different spells at Tasmanian newspapers.
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