Neville Wran's daughter Harriet Wran 'desperate' to buy the drug ice on night of stab

[poledriver]

Neville Wran's daughter Harriet Wran 'desperate' to buy the drug ice on night of stabbing: police

The daughter of the late NSW premier Neville Wran was "terrified" and "desperate" to buy the illicit drug ice on the night she, her boyfriend and another man allegedly killed an inner-Sydney drug dealer.
Fairfax Media understands Harriet Wran has told police she was "numb on ice" - the drug methylamphetamine - at the time a fight broke out in a Redfern unit on Sunday night.
Police allege Ms Wran, 26, attended the unit in Walker Street, Redfern, with two other men. They were due to meet Daniel John McNulty.

However, a fight broke out over the $70 drug deal, and Mr McNulty was stabbed to death.
Ms Wran, her boyfriend, Michael Lee, 35, and Lloyd Haines, 29, have been charged with murder.
Police allege the trio went to the unit with the joint intention of killing Mr McNulty.

Ms Wran's barrister Winton Terracini, SC, arrived at Liverpool Local Court just before 11.30am, saying his client would be pleading not guilty and would not be applying for bail.
Sources have told Fairfax Media Ms Wran will claim all she wanted to do was to feed her addiction to ice.
She has also been "basically living on the streets" for weeks, and when she was arrested had not a cent or single bank card in her possession.

Mr Lee did not appear when his matter was briefly mentioned in Liverpool Local Court.
He did not apply for bail and it was formally refused. His matter was adjourned until October 8.
Ms Wran was arrested with Mr Lee at Liverpool train station on Wednesday afternoon.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/neville-w...ing-police-20140814-103x04.html#ixzz3AKf3ElqB

 

[spacejunk]

Sad story all 'round.
From what I understand, her dad was a good man - watching his decline must've been tough.

I'm not going to speculate on her guilt or otherwise, however.

 

[poledriver]

Daniel McNulty didn't deserve to become footnote in celebrity story, friend says

Daniel John McNulty was a father, a friend, an addict and a part-time drug dealer.
But despite his many faults, the 48-year-old did not deserve to become a footnote in a celebrity story, one of his former friends said following his death in a public housing block in Redfern at the weekend.
"Daniel was a street kid who never had any tools to live life," the friend, who asked not to be identified, told Fairfax Media.

"He just could never get it right. He was clean for quite a number of years, but you know, it's an insidious disease that he had.
"He did not deserve this. He was a person who had feelings. He had a daughter. It just bothers me."
Three people have been charged with murder over Mr McNulty's death: Harriet Wran, 26, daughter of the late NSW premier Neville Wran; her boyfriend, Michael Lee, 35; and Lloyd Haines, 29.

The friend spoke out so Mr McNulty's death would not be swamped by the widespread media coverage about his accused killers.
Mr McNulty had lived his early life in Sydney, and studied sound engineering, before moving to Byron Bay, his friend said.
The keen fisherman had a daughter with his partner, but the friend said Mr McNulty had separated from his partner, and before his death rarely had contact with his daughter.

About two years ago, Mr McNulty moved back to Sydney and had secured a public housing unit in the high-rise McKell block on Walker Street. Police will allege he had some involvement in drug dealing from the unit.
Just two weeks before his death on Sunday, Brett Fitzgerald moved into the unit with him.
Mr Fitzgerald was also stabbed in Sunday night's fatal fight, allegedly over a $70 drug deal.
Mr Fitzgerald remains in St Vincent's Hospital recovering from his injuries, but declined to speak to Fairfax Media.

The friend did not romanticise Mr McNulty's life. But he said Mr McNulty was far from a criminal mastermind.
While Mr McNulty had managed to remain clean from drugs for some of his life, he was constantly struggling with his addiction, the friend said.
Mr McNulty had spent some time in prison, the friend said, without disclosing for what, and said the victim was a "low-level drug dealer to support his habit".

Cont -

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/daniel-mc...riend-says-20140814-10411i.html#ixzz3ALLc4aJ1

 

[poledriver]

How Harriet Wran, the daughter of a Labor legend, came undone

Just after 7pm last Sunday, former private schoolgirl and daughter of a Labor legend Harriet Wran was captured on CCTV footage walking through the lobby of a rundown housing commission block in Redfern.
The pretty 26-year-old took the stairs to level one, accompanied by two older men – her boyfriend of only two weeks, Michael Lee, and an alleged accomplice, Lloyd Haines.
This was no social call. Mr Lee and Mr Haines had come to confront Daniel McNulty over a previously botched drug deal. And Ms Wran was "desperate" for another hit.

In Mr Lee's possession, according to a police statement of facts, were two knives in a satchel, one "as long as Lee's forearm", while Mr Haines carried a metal stonemason's hammer.

Ms Wran reached the door of B30, raised her hand and knocked. Mr McNulty answered. A violent melee broke out, at the end of which Mr McNulty lay dead or dying from stab wounds on the floor, while another man who had been inside the apartment, Brett Fitzgerald, fled onto the street bleeding heavily from the neck.

Four days later, Ms Wran sat huddled huddled in a police lock-up dressed in police-issue forensic overalls facing murder and attempted murder charges.

Harriet was born in 1988 when Wran was 61, the oldest of two children he had with his second wife, the former Qantas executive Jill Hickson. The couple also had a son, Hugo, born three years after Harriet and Mr Wran had a son and daughter from his first marriage, Kim, now 59, and Glenn, 67.

The two sets of children were more than a generation apart – a factor that would fuel the explosive tensions that erupted inside the family as Mr Wran entered his twilight years.

She attended two of Sydney's most prestigious private girls' schools, Ascham and SCEGGS Darlinghurst, and for a for a short time was a student at Sydney University.
But, from her early 20s, it was clear alcohol and drugs were becoming a recurrent problem.

One family friend said Ms Wran was in and out of rehabilitation clinics half a dozen times and suffered from anorexia.

Another recalled her once having stitches on both arms from an act of self-harm. Her father would settle the debts she racked up from online gambling, according to a close family friend.
She would often disappear for weeks, leaving her father desperate to know her whereabouts. At one stage, she told Mr Wran she needed cash to pay off bikies who had abducted her. A payment was arranged, one source said. But Mr Wran was beside himself with worry.

"He was crying every night, he couldn't sleep ... he would call police trying to find out where she was," the source said.
In 2012, she was living in a rented granny flat in Hunters Hill that she shared with another man. Although she paid only $100 a week in rent, she would dress in expensive fur coats and, according to a local resident, looked like "someone you would expect to see in Double Bay".

The landlord said that Ms Wran rarely left the flat and said she was receiving Centrelink benefits. Large groups of men would show up at all times of the day and night.
Three months after she moved in, the owners of the property noticed police in their garden. The man Ms Wran was living with was arrested. When the landlord inspected the granny flat, he was shocked at what he found. He described it as a "crack den" with pipes, cartons of cigarettes and dirty dishes and clothes everywhere.

When police picked Ms Wran up on Wednesday afternoon at Liverpool railway station, she was still wearing the clothes she had been in at the time of Mr McNulty's murder. She had not slept for days and was carrying no cash, cards or ID.
Although she had been sleeping rough for some weeks, it would not have been for lack of resources.

When Mr Wran died in April this year, aged 87, he left an estate worth about $40 million, including a luxury apartment in Crown Street, Woolloomooloo, which was left jointly to Hugo and Harriet.

"When a person is in their 70s and 80s, it's hard to have teen children and behave like a father," the friend said. "It's all very sad."

Cont-

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/how-...ame-undone-20140814-1048e3.html#ixzz3AOgsk2qQ

 

[realtalkloc]

very sad story. Her addiction spiraled out of control and now she is stuck with a murder case.

 

[drug_mentor]

^ Personally I feel a lot worse for the dead dude than I do Ms Wran, from what I can tell she inherited a 20 million dollar estate and 4 months later got in on a plot to murder a small time drug dealer for 70 bucks worth of shards, I don't care how strung out you are there is no excuse for that bullshit.

Obviously it is yet to be proven that they went there with the intention of killing this guy, but it seems pretty clear when she brought along two blokes with knives and a hammer that they intended to do harm to this man.

 

[poledriver]

Harriet Wran, Tom Carroll, Phil Jamieson: how 'ice' brings lives undone

"Killing me from the inside out": Tom Carroll. Photo: Tim Bauer

The drug that dragged down Harriet Wran from a life of private schools and luxury apartments has no respect for social class or status.

Grinspoon lead singer Phil Jamieson became withdrawn and paranoid, stealing money from his band to feed his daily addiction.

Two-time world surfing champion Tom Carroll recently described how ice made him "completely manic", saying: "It was killing me from the inside out."

"No one is immune," says drugs expert Rebecca McKetin. "We like to think problems happen to other people but it could happen to us or people like us."

Ice is a highly addictive, crystalline form of methamphetamine, which can be snorted or swallowed, smoked or injected.

The high purity and increased availability of the stimulant in Australia over the past decade has attracted a growing range of users.

Ice made him withdrawn and paranoid: Phil Jamieson. Photo: Brendan Esposito

"The bulk of people are using it recreationally, they are not 'down-and-out' types, but there is a trickle effect of some people having problems," says Dr McKetin, of the Australian National University.

"The drug makes it very difficult for them to control their emotional impulses. They may become more impulsive, paranoid, overly suspicious.

"They are much more likely to act out violently. It adds fuel to the fire. People using the drug heavily often show an irrational type of behaviour that is inexplicable to the person looking on."

Studies show that aggression, violent behaviour and violent crime are relatively common among chronic methamphetamine users.

"They take ice to make them feel good ... but it seems to impact on people's capacity to regulate their emotions," Dr McKetin says. "It can get someone fairly volatile."

Just over 2 per cent of Australians use methamphetamines, compared with 10.2 per cent using cannabis, according to the National Drugs Strategy Household Survey.

But ice has proved popular in recent years, particularly compared with ecstasy and heroin.

While the number of people taking methamphetamines remains steady, the percentage of users preferring ice over drugs such as speed has more than doubled since 2010.

One in four ice users now take it daily or weekly, up 12 per cent over that time.

NSW police cases of possession or supply of amphetamines are up 6.4 per cent in the year to March 2014.

Drug Squad commander Tony Cooke attributes the rise, in part, to increased use of crystal methampthetamine and to police activity. "This drug is used across the community and the impacts are disastrous," he says.

Wran, 26, was reportedly "numb on ice" and living rough, often disappearing for weeks and surviving on Centrelink payments but still wearing expensive fur coats.

Carroll described last year how ice made him evasive and erratic. "I became utterly powerless ...There was no gap between thought and action."

Alex Wodak, former director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St Vincent's Hospital, says there has been a long-term trend towards increased stimulant use in Australia.

The proportion of illicit drug users who say ice is "very easy" to obtain increased from 31 per cent in 2004 to 42 per cent last year, according to the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre.

As purity has increased, so has the median price of the drug, from (prices removed) last year.

Much of this is smuggled into Australia from countries such as China. The number of detections at the Australian border of amphetamine-type substances is the highest on record, increasing 85.8 per cent in 2012-13.

The number of amphetamine users being admitted to hospital is also on the rise. Possible health problems include sleep disturbances, weight loss, epileptic seizures and abnormal heart rhythms.

But the potential mental health impacts are greater still, Dr Wodak says. "Not everybody who uses large quantities of amphetamines develop problems, many don't," he says.

Others become so drug-addled they slip free of their social anchors, falling out with employers, family and friends.

"Mental health problems include depression and feelings of despair and suicide," he says. "People can temporarily lose contact with reality."


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/harriet-w...ves-undone-20140815-104jeb.html#ixzz3AVLsZs00

 

[realtalkloc]

^ Personally I feel a lot worse for the dead dude than I do Ms Wran, from what I can tell she inherited a 20 million dollar estate and 4 months later got in on a plot to murder a small time drug dealer for 70 bucks worth of shards, I don't care how strung out you are there is no excuse for that bullshit.

Obviously it is yet to be proven that they went there with the intention of killing this guy, but it seems pretty clear when she brought along two blokes with knives and a hammer that they intended to do harm to this man.

You're right dude, i agree with u. That's definitely one way of looking at it, so many angles to this situation.

 

[ebola?]

the percentage of users preferring ice over drugs such as speed

Is there something going on with Australian slang I don't understand?

ebola

 

[drug_mentor]

^ In Australia methamphetamine comes in various forms, obviously you get crystal meth, commonly known as ice, but there are also some weaker forms. You also get what is generally referred to as speed, which is a more stepped on form of meth that tends to come as either a powder or powder that has been pressed into a rock, other common names for this substance would be wipper or whizz. In some area's you can also get a paste like substance, that is usually referred to as 'base', but can also be called speed. There is a somewhat common misconception that base is freebase methamphetamine because it is an oily substance, but it is just meth Hcl that has been cut with solvents usually.

When I was a fair bit younger speed used to be very common among drug users I knew, it was considerably easier to obtain than crystal methamphetamine and there was much less sitgma associated with the use of speed compared to ice. As the years have gone by, ice is more and more common, I would really have to ask around to find speed, where ice is as easy as weed to get and is an extremely common drug. Most ice users I know would never waste their time or money on speed any more, as it is increasingly common knowledge that they are the exact same drug in different concentrations. It wouldn't shock me at all if speed is still more popular among younger drug users though.

 

[poledriver]

I just watched a doco on Christian Hosoi (the skater) and they refer to speed in that a fair bit, and that was back in the late 80's and early 90's so I guess it was referred to speed over in the US in some circles too, then it refers to crystal meth later when Hosoi is really addicted to it and he tries to smuggle a kilo or whatever it was on a plane and got busted.

 

[spacejunk]

Is there something going on with Australian slang I don't understand?

ebola

"Meth" didnt become widely known/used in Australia until the late 90s or thereabouts, and my understanding is that previously - particularly in the 70s and 80s, outlaw biker gangs controlled the market in amphetamine sulphate.
"Meth"/"ice"/"crystal"/"shard" etc has a stigma attached to it that some users (ie those that indulged in the "old school" sulphate) avoid - though, crushed or impure meth-amp (basically anything that is a white powder IME can be called "speed") and marketed to these people as a different product.
People actually are ill-informed enough to draw the line at "meth" but will seek out "the old school shit" - which (in Australia) is invariably methamphetamine anyway.

Lots of Australian drug users also call meth "crack".
It's moronic, embarrassing and worrying - especially when the people synthing the shit buy into this mythology.

I honestly think Australia has the most primitive (for want of a better word) drug culture in the developed world - and this kind of linguistic stupidity illustrates it perfectly.
So yes! There is something going on with Australian slang that makes no sense at all.

All amphetamine is "speed" to me; "meth" is just a folk devil of the mindless Australian media; "NEW DRUG METH MAKES OUR KIDS PSYCHOTIC SEX MURDER FIENDS" etc.

 

[realtalkloc]

I just watched a doco on Christian Hosoi (the skater)

i just saw that too, crazy documentary. he fucked up in life big time

 

[poledriver]

Yeah, but not as bad as Gator did (still in jail I think), did you see the one on Gator?

All amphetamine is "speed" to me; "meth" is just a folk devil of the mindless Australian media; "NEW DRUG METH MAKES OUR KIDS PSYCHOTIC SEX MURDER FIENDS" etc.

There seems to be alot more people struggling with addiction to ice than there used to be to powder speed, but I guess that's alot to do with the strength/purity of it compared to the powder and glug of the pre shard days.

 

[realtalkloc]

Yeah, but not as bad as Gator did (still in jail I think), did you see the one on Gator?
.

i dont know who gator is, id love to see it though, what's his name?

 

[poledriver]

He is another famous skateboarder from the same era as hosoi, hawke, lance mountain, cabellero etc...

It's called - "Stoked The Rise and Fall of Gator". Even if you aren't into skating it's still a great watch. I found it and the hosoi one online recently and watched them both and loved them.

Here's the trailer -

[video=youtube_share;vA8xLe7MxWo]http://youtu.be/vA8xLe7MxWo[/video]

 

[spacejunk]

Yeah, but not as bad as Gator did (still in jail I think), did you see the one on Gator?



There seems to be alot more people struggling with addiction to ice than there used to be to powder speed, but I guess that's alot to do with the strength/purity of it compared to the powder and glug of the pre shard days.

I agree that they are different beasts - but when practically all of the street amphetamine in Australia is methamphetamine, I don't see the point in calling one thing "speed" and the other "methamphetamine".
It's confusing, and deliberately so, I think.
Dealer hype, sales pitch - and ignorance.
People who wont touch meth, but still want to take "speed" - they get what (they think) they want.

Even if it's sold to them as "smokable speed - but it's not meth" (yes, I have heard people say this) they'll get on and everyone's happy.
Well, for a little while. Then sometimes things go awry. As in this depressing instance.

 

[One Thousand Words]

I grew up with speed being amphetamine sulphate. Meth is a much different beast, not only in effects but in the way it is abused. Speed was usually racked up or dumped into a drink and then you went and did shit. For a lot of ice users their night is spent sitting on the couch twirling the pipe. In England you'll be hard pressed to find meth, speed and whizz is almost always amphetamine sulphate.

It annoyed me when people started to interchange the terms "ice" and "speed", but not has much as people calling it "crack". Then again dope is used for both weed and heroin so I guess it's not that uniquely annoying.

 

[ebola?]

Is there something I can call meth with that cute "ie" ending, a la calling members of motorcycle gangs "bikies"?

ebola

 

[One Thousand Words]

Junkie lollies perhaps?