A 46-year-old man has been released from jail on drugs charges after judges ruled police had falsified and misrepresented telephone tap evidence, the NRC reported on Monday.

The man, facing a year in jail for dealing in hard drugs, was freed after what judges said were ‘serious contraventions of the principles of a fair trial’.

Nine of the 18 recorded phone conversations used by police as evidence were not properly reported, the ruling stated. In one, police wrote up a conversation which did not take place because the phone was not answered. In another report, a woman who answered the phone is described as a man, the NRC said.

The public prosecution department is appealing against the decision, saying there was sufficient other evidence to convict the man. ‘There is no evidence that [the phone tap reports] were deliberate errors,’ spokesman Jeroen Steenbrink told the paper.