Darwin dad Matthew Burke’s mum offers $40k surety in bail bid following record drug bust

A Darwin man’s lawyer told the court his mum had dipped into her superannuation to stump up the cash, which was ‘not the usual amount that is proffered in these matters’.

Joint Organised Crime Task Force officers seized 3kg of cocaine valued at $1.5m buried in a drum on The Esplanade.

The ailing mother of a Rural Area dad allegedly caught up in one of the Territory’s biggest ever drug busts has volunteered $40,000 of her own super in a bid to give him a few more weeks of freedom, a court has heard.

Matthew Leon Burke, 42, faced the Supreme Court on Thursday where he revived a previously failed attempt to secure bail after police allegedly seized 5.5kg of cannabis and $100,000 from his Howard Springs home in May.

Investigators have linked the items found at Burke’s home to the unearthing of 3kg of cocaine and $110,000 in cash which was allegedly buried in a waterproof container on the Esplanade.

On Thursday, Burke’s lawyer Julie Franz said while her client intended to plead guilty “to appropriate charges”, he wanted to spend the meantime looking after his mother.

“We acknowledge it will be for a limited period of time until he does have to return to prison as a sentenced prisoner,” she said.

Ms Franz said the conditions in Holtze Prison were “particularly dire” for inmates on remand, including “multiple days of lockdowns” due to understaffing.

“The conditions are not as harsh for sentenced prisoners who can move through the classification process quite quickly,” she said.

“Due to the nature of the charges Mr Burke is facing it’s likely that he will achieve the medium and low security rating quite quickly and not be in the higher section of the prison where remand prisoners, unfortunately, are kept.”

Ms Franz said his mother’s ill health along with his partner’s pregnancy amounted to “special circumstances” that meant Burke should be allowed to go free prior to sentencing.

“The other aspect of this is the amount of cash that is offered to secure Mr Burke’s bail,” she said.

“In my respectful submission that is a significant amount and not the usual amount that is proffered in these matters.

“The usual amounts are somewhere between $5000 to $10,000, so $40,000 is a significant amount.”

In adjourning the hearing until next week so the court could hear evidence about the effect on Burke’s mother of losing her surety as well as his ties to Darwin, Justice John Reeves suggested he could plead on the same day.

Crown prosecutor Daniel Payne said his office would likely be able to file an expedited indictment by then but Ms Franz said it was “highly unlikely” the plea could be successfully negotiated in time.