Stolen cop gun tracked by wire
Courier Mail, Page: 15. Friday, 19 December, 2008
A developer was fitted with a body wire to trap a drug dealer who traded a Gold Coast police officer two surfboards for a stolen police pistol, a court has been told.
Gold Coast police officer Christopher Curtin is facing a committal hearing charged with stealing the Glock .22 handgun from the Surfers Paradise police station and swapping it for two surfboards with NSW drug dealer and surfboard maker Brian Kellway.
He is also charged with possessing tainted property allegedly the two surfboards.
Curtin allegedly gave the gun to his friend Kellway to go pig-shooting in return for the surfboards. The gun allegedly changed hands several times before finally ending up with an undercover police officer.
NSW South Coast developer Glen Thomson told Southport Magistrate’s Court he received the loaded Glock from Kellway in a brown paper bag in April 2001 after agreeing to pay $4000 for the weapon.
Thomson was a pistol club member who had been forced to hand in his guns because of a domestic violence order, the court was told.
He said he asked Kellway about getting a gun after being forced to put down a cow on his property using a log splitter.
“It was an awful experience. . . I would have said I needed a gun for the property,” Thomson told the court.
Thomson said he did not like the gun but kept it in a safe for several years before selling it to a local engineer, John Babbington Sr, for $5000 in late 2005.
Babbington said he passed the gun to a man named Brad who he later discovered was an undercover police officer.
The court was told police fitted Thomson with a body wire in January this year to record a conversation with Kellway about how he got the gun.
Shown the allegedly stolen Glock in court yesterday, Thomson and Babbington both said it looked the same as the one they had owned.
Babbington said when he received the gun, it was in a police holster and he asked Thomson where he had got it.
“He said that he found it in the gutter,” Babbington told the court. “I said you don’t find things like that in the gutter.”
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