Head Hunters gang member Darren Creelman, with his long history of meth offending, was seen as a standout example of redemption at Nga Kete Wananga Solutions - a drug rehab centre considered a place of last resort for some of Auckland’s toughest-to-reach addicts awaiting trial on bail.

After graduating from the tikanga Māori-based programme, situated on a working farm in Dairy Flat, Creelman went on to serve as a mentor for newcomers and took on a permanent, live-in maintenance role.

But police suspected it was all subterfuge - the perfect cover, not to mention a profitable location, for someone who still had a strong interest in making money off others’ weakness for the illicit drug. An Auckland District Court jury has now agreed, finding him guilty for a third time of high-level drug offending.

Creelman was arrested in October 2022 after armed police, including a specialist unit targeting gangs, conducted an early morning raid on the facility. Hidden in a plastic bucket on a woodpile in a muddy paddock of the property, investigators discovered a pistol, ammunition, about 400 grams of methamphetamine and just under 1kg of meth ingredient pseudoephedrine.

At the outset of Creelman’s trial last week, prosecutor Daniel Becker acknowledged the discovery of the bucket - in a common area of the property rather than Creelman’s residence - made the case circumstantial. But he recited a long list of details that he said individually might not mean much but together pointed to Creelman’s guilt.

Items discovered during a police raid at Nga Kete rehab facility in Dairy Flat, Auckland.

They included that the woodpile cache was closer to Creelman’s residence than any other on-site dwelling, that Creelman would have had a direct line of sight to it from his massage chair and that he had almost $6000 cash in his home. Also incriminating, Becker said, was the presence of Glad brand sandwich bags, low-cost rubbish bags, small Sistema containers and a heat sealer in the defendant’s home. The bags and container matched items also found in the bucket and the heat sealer pattern seemed to match a bag containing ammunition, he said.

“Mr Creelman is either the unluckiest gentleman in the world or he’s guilty,” Becker said during his closing address, arguing that it would be hard to fathom all of the similarities being a coincidence.

Defence lawyer Shannon Withers noted that all of the items found in his client’s home were “perfectly ordinary”, enough so that jurors likely had them in their homes as well.

Police officers search a paddock behind the Nga Kete Wananga drug rehabilitation centre in Dairy Flat. Photo / George Block

“There are no fingerprints, no DNA, no cellphone data, no CCTV. Zilch. Nada. Bupkiss,” he said of the link between the bucket and Creelman, accusing police of suffering “tunnel vision” as they tried to prove a theory about a rehab facility meth lab.

“It sounds like an adult version of Scooby-Doo,” he quipped.

Jurors were not told about Creelman’s gang affiliation during the trial, but they were told of his lengthy criminal history for meth and firearms charges dating back to 2012, including prior convictions for conspiracy to deal methamphetamine, supplying methamphetamine and possession of methamphetamine for supply.

The sign outside the rehabiliation facility housing people on bail. Nga Kete's website says it is a "Maori tikanga and kawa based organisation which offers a 12 week residential support service with rehabilitation and reintegration programmes for men aged 18 years onwards". Photo / Dean Purcell

Jurors also learned of at least five others at the property who had similarly extensive criminal histories - each one of whom, the defence suggested, may be the real culprit.

Nga Kete founder Matilda Kahotea, who testified for the defence last week after the Crown finished calling police witnesses, said Creelman had earned trust in the roughly 15 months between when he first arrived at the centre and the police raid that resulted in his arrest.

“He’d done the programme. He’d progressed to being a peer support member and mentor. He was employed by us,” she explained. “He eventually made his way to taking the leadership role.”

Kahotea told the Herald after last year’s raid that she felt police were targeting the facility due to her own gang links - she’s the mother of three senior Head Hunters members. But that knowledge of the gang underworld and credibility among its members is what makes her programme effective, she said, explaining that members of all gangs work together towards the same goal of recovery at her facility.

National Party police spokesman Mark Mitchell meets gang whānau hikoi representatives Matilda Kahotea and Taniora Tamihana (left) at Parliament in September. Photo / Mark Mitchell

“We’re the people who can connect with these guys,” she explained. “We can make a breakthrough...”

But the dedicated bail facility and others like it have also copped criticism, including from then-National police spokesman Mark Mitchell in the immediate aftermath of the Nga Kete raid.

“Having gang members sent by the court to effectively what are gang pads, being funded by taxpayers and exposing communities to more danger needs both urgent action and an explanation from the Government,” the then-Opposition MP said at the time.

Jurors returned their guilty verdicts against Creelman late Monday, following about four hours of deliberations.

A sentencing date will be set next week for possession of methamphetamine for supply, possession of a precursor substance for manufacturing methamphetamine, unlawful possession of a semi-automatic pistol and unlawful possession of ammunition.

The supply charge carries a maximum possible punishment of life imprisonment.

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.