NOT GUILTY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 111, 13 May 1938, Page 11

NOT GUILTY.

MISSING FROCK CHARGE.

VERDICT OF JURY.

A direct conflict between the evidence of the chief witness for the Crown and that of the accused woman was a point which occupied much of the addresses to the jury in the case at the Supreme Court to-day," before Mr. Justice Fair, in which Athene Ida Jean Shalfoon. a young married woman, was charged with the theft of a frock, valued at £4 9/6, the property of a Queen Street firm.

In reply to evidence that a frock missed from the frock department'of a city store was traced to accused's possession, and that there was no evidence of sale to her, accused gave evHence that bought the frock from the store. She gave evidence that she bought the frock from a saleswoman, to whom she paid £4 9/6.

Witness stated that she was given a docket as receipt. She had told the police it was a yellow docket, and that was still her impression despite the evidence that only white and pink dockets were used in the shop for cash eales. She did not remember what happened to the receipt, which she could not find when seen by the detective later.

Mr. J. J. Sullivan, for the accused, stated in his address to the jury that

there was no suggestion of anything improper by the saleswoman who had given evidence that she never sold accused the frock, but it was suggested that she had made a mistake, such as might happen, in a big •'tore, and that

she could not recall details of a sale at a busy time in the department some weeks after the event.

Mr. V. R. Meredith, for the Crown, urged that the issue on this point -was clear that either accused stole the frock or the ealeswoman purloined the money. Against the latter suggestion counsel pointed out that accused said she got a docket, and as all dockets in the shop were in duplicate and numbered consecutively the failure of the duplicate to return to the office or its disappearance from the sequence of numbers, would be detected in the office.

The jury was considering its verdict at the luncheon adjournment.

The jury returned after two hours' consideration with a verdict of not guilty and accused was discharged.