Top End childcare manager Tara Harding and husband Omar El-Nachar appear in Darwin Local Court
A Top End childcare manager wept as her husband and co-accused asked a judge to be reunited with their child.
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A Top End childcare manager wiped away tears as her husband and drug-dealing co-accused pleaded to be reunited with their child.
Tara Eva Harding and her husband Omar El-Nachar appeared in Darwin Local Court on Wednesday facing numerous drug charges following a raid of their Palmerston home on July 7.
Police allege they uncovered a commercial stash of drugs in a safe hidden in the couple’s shared walk-in wardrobe.
Harding has previously claimed she did not know that cocaine and meth was stashed at their home, despite prosecutors alleging there was drug “paraphernalia” scattered around the house.
The husband and wife duo each face six charges, including supplying and possessing a commercial quantity of drugs, possessing items to administer drugs, and possessing property in the commission of an offence.
The couple have been separated for four months, with Harding’s bail conditions meaning she was unable to see her husband.
The court heard their only communication over the phone or via letters.
El-Nachar told Judge Thomasin Opie he was missing his “babies”, and asked for her bail to be amended so he could speak to his wife and stepchild.
“We’re raising a kid together,” he said.
The couple’s lawyer Peter Maley said he intended to push for a bail variation to allow them to reunite in person.
It comes as he signalled that El-Nachar was preparing to enter a guilty plea, to resolve the case and allow him to join the general prison population, rather than remain on the restrictive remand conditions.
But Mr Maley said he needed more time, as police had complied over 600 hours of surveillance footage of the couple.
He said it was unclear what of the hundreds of hours of footage would be relied on as part of the prosecution’s case.
Ms Opie adjourned Harding and El-Nachar’s hearing to December 13.
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Originally published as Top End childcare manager Tara Harding and husband Omar El-Nachar appear in Darwin Local Court
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