NSW Police Raptor squad slammed after Adam Smith’s 65 days in jail over ‘toy’ guns

Gang-busting Raptor squad police have copped a judge’s anger after a NSW father and senior corrective services officer spent two months in jail over toy guns officers treated like the real deal.

Some of the items seized by police during their raid on Adam James Smith.

The gang-busting NSW Police Raptor squad has been slammed by a judge for seizing kids’ toy guns and charging their dad, a senior corrective services officer, with firearms charges that saw him spend 65 days in jail on remand.

“I can do nothing but shake my head,” acting District Court judge Paul Conlon said on Wednesday.

“In my time as a judicial officer I cannot recall an occasion when I have been more concerned to restore some justice to an offender rather than to further punish them.”

The judge has called on the fledgling NSW Government to change the law so gelblasters are regarded as children’s toys and can be legally possessed, as happens in Queensland. Or if they remain illegal, gelblasters should not be in the same category as firearms, he said.

The court was told that paintball guns, which are legal in NSW, carry an impact 14 times greater than a gelblaster.

The Raptor squad was slammed by a judge for seizing toy guns like this and charging a former prison officer over their possession.

“Expert evidence indicated that gelblasters propel small hydrated gel pellets as a result of a mechanism involving compressed air,” the judge said.

Judge Conlon, himself a former top prosecutor, also fired a broadside at the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for the multitude of charges laid against father-of-three Adam Smith, 35, who the court heard was of exemplary character and then opposing bail which left him locked up for 65 days before he won release on remand.

“It is difficult to understand how that could possibly have occurred,” Judge Conlon said.

Smith was also charged with possessing one unregistered firearm which was a gelblaster without the internal mechanism working found in the boys’ bedroom, the judge said.

Adam Smith and fiancee Stephanee Fleming leave the Downing Centre after being cleared of charges relating to having toy guns. Picture: John Grainger

Smith, who has been suspended on full pay by Corrective Services NSW, was supported in court by his fiancee Stephanie Fleming with their 10-month-old son Conor. He has two sons aged eight and 11 from a previous marriage with whom he played with using the gelblasters, the court heard.

“I have been treated like a criminal for the last three years and now it’s over,” Smith said outside court.

He is now hoping for his job back as he fights in a tribunal against a Firearms Prohibitions Order imposed by the police. While awaiting sentence, Raptor cops twice raided Smith’s home near Lithgow, once seizing a knife and arresting him in his pyjamas while his fiancee was 37 weeks’ pregnant.

Judge Conlon said Smith was again denied police bail but freed the next morning in Lithgow Local Court. The knife charge was dropped because it was a legal camping knife.

The stash found at the home of senior Corrective Services NSW officer Adam James Smith turned out to be nothing but toys.

Smith’s lawyer Ken Lambeth said outside court that it seemed his client had been “made an example of”.

“It’s about time these toys are recognised as such and people who possess them are not treated like gang members or criminals,” Mr Lambeth, also a former Crown prosecutor, said.

In his judgment, Judge Conlon said police went to Smith’s home in December 2020 with a search warrant listing a Glock pistol, ammunition, canisters of CS gas, nunckuks, handcuffs, steroids and any other items unlawfully obtained that may be the property of Corrective Services NSW.

He said that no items unlawfully obtained from Corrective Services were found but police seized 15 gelblasters. In a bag in a cupboard there were also a butterfly knife, extendible batons, five sets of handcuffs, gas canisters, knuckle dusters, taser and cartridges, a body armour vest which did not fit Smith and smoke grenades.

Adam James Smith during his arrest in December 2020.

Judge Conlon rejected Smith’s evidence that he had found them in the roof cavity of his home but said they were kept in a cupboard.

He found Smith guilty of possessing prohbited weapons but did not record any convictions for the charges of possessing the gelblasters. He recorded convictions for the other counts but did not impose any penalties.

“Perhaps those responsible for presenting the bill of indictment simply had no appreciation or understanding that there is a world of difference between gelblasters, which are in fact toys, and what is commonly understood as firearms capable of inflicting serious injuries, some of which can prove to be fatal,” the judge said.

“I indicated my concern in respect of the present state of the law regarding an item that can fall within the definition of an “imitation” firearm.

“Clearly such items are capable of being used in the commission of criminal activity and should be subject to a charge under the firearms legislatio. However if one was to look at a scenario where an “imitation’ firearm was found in a child’s bedroom in the course of a search, it is difficult that Parliament had ever intended such an item to be subject to a charge under the Firearms Act.”