as Police waited to search his apartment, a court heard yesterday.

Richard Ricardo Steede, 37, of Kitty's Drive, pleaded not guilty in the Supreme Court yesterday to possession of crack cocaine intended for supply, and cannabis and equipment intended for use with controlled drugs.

He also pleaded not guilty to obstructing a Policewoman and guilty to using offensive words in a public place during the August 17 raid.

Crown Counsel Peter Eccles told the jury of seven women and five men that at the centre of the case was the "very simple issue'' of whether Steede had flushed the drugs down the toilet when he heard Police at his door.

He said an officer discovered a watertight plastic bag of drugs in the apartment's cesspit which was later found to contain 8.49 grammes of 75 percent pure crack cocaine in brown paper wraps with a street value of about $26,000. And after an officer flushed the toilet another watertight plastic package appeared which was found to hold 3.94 grammes of cannabis.

"It is indeed a circumstantial case,'' Mr. Eccles told the jury. "Nobody saw him flush the toilet. When the Police officers got there the toilet was running but he was standing in the shower -- fully clothed.'' He told them not to be confused by television shows like "Perry Mason'' in which circumstantial evidence was sometimes seen as suspect. "Think of the evidence you will hear as a series of little threads and they all come together to form a rope which can be very strong. You should not be worried or frightened of a circumstantial evidence case.'' Detective Constable Robert Cardwell, who led the raid as an Acting Sergeant at the time, said when Police eventually gained entry he heard the toilet system running as if it had been recently flushed.

And one of his officers had found Steede standing in the shower recess fully clothed, he said.

He also said the Police dog went through the apartment and gave a clear signal that he detected drugs on Steede's hands.

But Steede denied the drugs were his when Police pulled them from the underground pit.

It was while a woman Police officer was lying on the ground trying to pull the package out of the vent pipe leading to the cesspit that the accused, standing nearby, had lashed out towards her, he told the court.

Steede had cut his own forehead by accidentally hitting it with his handcuffs as he thrashed his arms and kicked at the pipe which the female officer was using to try to "fish'' the package out of the pit.

An officer had then flushed the toilet again and another package was soon seen floating in the pit, he said.