The prisoner and the prison guard
According to the summary of facts, the prison guard and Clarke’s female associate met in April 2020, when she handed him the class B controlled drug GBL and, later the same month, two bottles of L&P laced with alcohol.
Despite being in the first national Covid lockdown, the guard delivered both to Clarke’s cell in the prison’s high/medium-security risk unit.
After receiving the drugs, Clarke complained about the quality of the GBL and accused the woman of not delivering the full amount.
Rimutaka Prison in the Wellington suburb of Upper Hutt, which was the subject of an investigation by the National Organised Crime Group in 2020 known as Operation Portia. Photo / File
The woman, unhappy with Clarke’s accusations and verbal abuse, suggested the guard should get the contraband from elsewhere. But she agreed to continue having sex with him.
Despite the conflict, the trio continued to communicate and the woman met the guard again that month and handed over two bottles of L&P.
The guard delivered the bottles to Clarke’s cell while working a night shift, when he was alone on the unit.
Several days later, the bottles were found by another Corrections officer, with one smelling of alcohol.
When spoken to, the guard denied being involved in corruption at the prison, claiming he was delivering a laundry bag to Clarke.
But he couldn’t explain his close associations with the woman or his communications with Clarke.
Meanwhile, the woman admitted to having sex with the guard on several occasions, saying she would see him up to twice a week.
At the guard’s sentencing, the key issue for Judge Peter Hobbs was whether to impose a sentence of home or community detention.
The man’s lawyer, Elizabeth Hall, sought a sentence of community detention, saying it would allow her client to find work.
“If he could do home detention and work, then I wouldn’t be standing here,” she said.
Hall said her client was living off his savings. When those were exhausted, he would be without work and unable to meet his financial obligations, including paying a mortgage and household expenses. This, in turn, would harm his partner and wider family, she said.
She submitted that a corruption conviction would have a lasting impact and the length of time since the offending, as well as the loss of career and the impact that had on him, warranted a sentence of community detention.
But Crown prosecutor Katherine Werry said the man had effectively spent two years on full pay since being stood down from his job, only resigning in February this year when he pleaded guilty.
She said there was nothing that prevented him from working or training while on home detention.
Wayne Te Awawa John Clarke at his sentencing in the Wellington District Court in February. Photo / Catherine Hutton
Werry also took issue with Hall’s claim the man was a pawn of Clarke, saying he’d initiated contact with Clarke’s associate to facilitate the collection of contraband.
The court heard another prison guard, arrested as part of the same operation, was sentenced to community detention.
But Judge Hobbs said in that case the defendant was working and any sentence short of community detention would have jeopardised that employment.
“I am not satisfied you are in the same position,” he told the guard at Tuesday’s sentencing, referring to a pre-sentence report that said Corrections could assist the man with finding a job or receive further training.
He ordered the man to serve nine months’ home detention.
Judge Hobbs declined to grant the prison guard and Clark’s associate permanent name suppression but allowed them interim suppression pending an appeal.
Clarke was sentenced in February after he admitted two charges of unauthorised delivery and was jailed for one month, to be served concurrently on the sentence he was already serving. The charges related to the delivery of drugs and alcohol to his cell in Rimutaka Prison in April 2020.
Judge Nicola Wills noted the aggravating factors included that the offending occurred on two occasions and involved a Corrections officer.
At the same time, his associate was convicted and discharged after admitting two charges of unauthorised delivery, relating to her supply of the drugs and alcohol to Clarke in April 2020.
Judge Wills found a sentence of community work wasn’t appropriate for the woman.
“It is clear to me that you have a degree of vulnerability in terms of your mental health and the challenges you face in your personal life”.
Operation Portia
The trio were the last of six to be sentenced as part of an investigation, dubbed Operation Portia, by the National Organised Crime Group into suspected criminal activity at Rimutaka Prison that concluded in December 2023.
Almost 200 people were interviewed as part of the operation, including Corrections staff, prisoners and other witnesses. The investigation involved interrogation of phones, bank data and combing through hours of CCTV footage.
Most faced charges of corruption and bribery, which required the Attorney-General’s consent to prosecute.
The six, who were aged between 37 and 50, included inmate Clarke, his associate, a current Corrections employee and former employees.
The court adopted a starting point of two years, eight months’ jail for those facing bribery and corruption charges.
The other sentences
Corrections officer Neil Falelima Potter was sentenced in August 2024 to nine months’ home detention after admitting three charges of corruption of an enforcement officer.
On three occasions in October and December 2020, the then prison officer took tobacco and food provided by an inmate’s partner, who paid him $3700, into Rimutaka Prison.
Judge Michael Mika said at Potter’s sentencing that it was a serious breach of trust.
“You were employed as a Corrections officer. It is a position of trust and authority. The offending of corruption by Corrections officers is a very serious breach of trust that undermines our penal system.”
In November 2024, another Corrections officer, whose name is suppressed, received eight months’ home detention after admitting a representative charge of corruptly accepting a bribe.
The man agreed to smuggle tobacco to prisoners in 2019 if they deposited money into an associate’s account.
According to the summary of facts, $4500 was transferred into the bank account, with the officer receiving $4220.
Judge Stephen Harrop noted the obvious breach of trust and authority.
“You were a Corrections department officer dealing with a prisoner, so you have betrayed the trust of your employer, your colleagues at the prison and the wider public, which places trust in people holding your position to act honestly and with integrity,” the judge told the man.
The following year, in November 2025, Jason Mokalei, also a Corrections officer, was sentenced to six months’ community detention on a representative charge of corruptly accepting a bribe.
He was found to have brought contraband into prison on a number of occasions during 2020.
Judge David Laurenson, KC, told him at sentencing that “your offending involved a serious breach of trust and risks undermining the integrity of the penal system”.
“It involves significant pre-mediation and planning, and it was carried out for the purposes of receiving, and you received some, financial gain,” the judge said.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.