Former meth lab residue pined for positive roadside

A woman has told a Toowoomba court her meth-lab contaminated shed from former owners was to blame for the positive roadside drug test. And then the prosecutor agreed she could be right.

A magistrate vacated a Toowoomba region woman’s guilty plea after learning the alleged drug driver may have inadvertently ingested methamphetamine.

Solicitor Ryan McCullough told the court his client Christine Jill Spierenburg, instructed him she never used meth.

Mr McCullough said it was in Ms Spierenburg’s system because she was doing woodwork in a shed on her property which recently tested positive for high levels of meth.

The court heard a safe reading of the drug was point five of a unit, and the levels in the shed were greater than 30 units.

The Toowoomba courthouse, police station, and watch house. Picture: Peta McEachern

Mr McCullough said his client was in contact with researchers from Queensland Health and the University of Queensland to document the effects the exposure may have.

“Speaking to those researchers it seems a reading like that, it was likely to be used for the manufacturing of methamphetamine,” he said.

Magistrate Shepard said the matter was of public interest and said it seemed “inherently unfair and unjust” to convict Ms Spierenburg.

“Would prosecution accept that it must be the case that this building was used for the manufacturing of methamphetamine and it has no connection to Ms Spierenburg, that she has unknowingly ingested the substance?” she said.

Police prosecutor Cameron Francis said he would be open to a submission from MacDonald Law.

“There’s no contesting that given the circumstances (and) it is very difficult to disprove,” he said.

Magistrate Shepard vacated the woman’s guilty plea and listed to matter to be mentioned on June 8.