Police protect identity of informant in Phillip Manwarring cannabis case

Police are fighting to protect the identity of a secret informant who lifted the lid on a former hotshot ‘selfie stick’ lawyer Phillip Manwarring’s alleged drug bunker.

A woman’s photo of Phillip Manwarring where she claimed he put a camera on a selfie stick to look into her home. No charges were laid.

Police are fighting to protect the identity of a secret ­informant who lifted the lid on a hotshot lawyer’s alleged drug bunker.

Former Gresham Partners legal director Phillip Robert Manwarring was charged after 52 plants were allegedly found on a $1 million Southern Highlands property owned by his company Lily Investment (Australia).

Now, lawyers representing NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller are appealing a Nowra magistrate’s decision to allow the 51-year-old lawyer access to a police ­intelligence report that led to his arrest.

The NSW Supreme Court summons by Crown Solicitor Karen Smith argues that handing over the documents — even with names redacted — would “facilitate the identification of a confidential informant”.

Phillip Manwarring (right) at his short-stay property Cloudbreaker Falls in December 2020 with business partners. Picture: Instagram

The court document says police received information from a confidential source on January 28 last year about an “underground bunker on a rural property in Beaumont which was being used for the purpose of manufacturing illicit substances”.

“Further confidential information concerning the structure and the property was provided, but that information has not been disclosed,” the document said of the property, located near Kangaroo Valley.

“Police were refused a ­request to search the property without a warrant.”

The documents say police found the plants and “certain other items” during an April 2 search after they got a warrant from the local court earlier that day.

Instagram pictures of a property in Beaumont near Kangaroo Valley, owned by lawyer Phillip Manwarring.

They also said Nowra Local Court magistrate Lisa Viney made the decision to allow access because she thought doing otherwise would “jeopardise his right to a fair trial”.

The drugs were allegedly found on a property next to Manwarring idyllic Cloudbreaker Falls cabin, which is a favourite among Instagrammers.

Manwarring remains on bail pending the November hearing, where he is charged with cultivating an indictable but less than commercial quantity of cannabis (more than 1kg but less than 25kg).

The maximum penalty is two years imprisonment and a fine of $11,000.

The musclebound Manwarring shot to unwanted prominence in 2018 when he strongly denied putting a camera on a giant selfie stick to peek at a partly-dressed woman in her home.

While the woman, 25, complained to police, no charges were laid.

Manwarring claimed he was using the camera to look at brick movements during construction work on his harbourside apartment.

Lawyers representing Manwarring were contacted but declined to comment