DARING THEFTS.

Press, Volume XLIV, Issue 19391, 17 August 1928, Page 10

DARING THEFTS.

SHEEP STEALING IN CANTERBURY. STOCKOWNERS REPORT HEAVY LOSSES. Daring recent years sheep men in Canterbury have suffered enormous losses as a result of organised raiding of the large flocks in the back country. "The position to-day is worse than ever before," said MrW.E Nicholson, secretary of the Canterbury Sheepowners' tJnion, to a representative of "The Press'' yesterday. "Sheep stealing is being carried out on a wholesale scale, but, unfortunately, it Is practically impossible to trap those responsible, and, under the present Stock Act, it is even more difficult to obtain a conviction."

According to prominent stockowners, who were interviewed yesterday, thousands of sheep are being stolen annually from pastures which hitherto have been deemed to be perfectly safe. This is done in three ways, as follows :

(1) By systematic raiding of flocks in remote paddocks of back country stations.

(2) By cutting in on long lines that are being driven from sales —a practice that is daring in the extreme, but which has been carried out successfully during the last two or three years. (3) By penning 20 or 30 sheep in a corner of a paddock, and then loading them into a covered motor-lorry—many sheep have been stolen in this way The position has become so acute — owners in all parts of the district reporting losses during the past few months—that the Canterbury Sheepowners' Union has taken the matter in hand, and investigations will be made by a special sub-committee of the union with a view to tracking down sheep raiders. A standing reward of • £IOO is still offered by the Sheepowners* Union to any person obtaining a conviction for stealing sheep, the property of a member of the union. In this connexion, members are urged to communicate at once with the secretary, should they have grounds to assume that losses of stock from their property are due to any other than ordinary causes.

A Glaring Case. Only a fortnight ago a glaring case of sheep stealing was reported from the Methven»district. While motoring home one evening a sheepowner residing in this district met a man on horseback driving.a mob of Bheep, 300 in number. As it is a breach of the regulations to drive sheep after sundown, the motorist asked the drover where he was taking the sheep. Lighting a cigarette, the man replied: "I'm taking this lot to Mr who has just bought them from Mr ——." He then proceeded on "aTS is unusual to sell four-tooth ewes at this time of the year, the motorist's suspicions were aroused, ana on arriving at his home he'telephoned the man supposed to have sold tne shee£ that he had nothing since "March.. .This was important news, and both men immediately gave chase in their cars, but, alarmed by their approach, the drover made good his escape under cover or darkness. ' , , ... It is believed, however, that tne identity of this man is known to the police, and it is probable that Court proceedings will follow.

Stolen and Sold. The above case is, but one of many. In November of last year a mob ot 4W ewes disappeared in a night from a part of thfsurrey ffills Station in the Ashburton district, and it quently discovered that these had been sold at the Dunedm yards. Here again, it. was impossible to_ obtain sufficient evidence to ™™£*™£ cessfnl prosecution, even though tne name of the person responsible was common property. .u™, Earlv this year a well-known sheepfarmefin the Amberley, district discovered ?hat he was losing> sheep m batches of twenty. His pacTdocks were well fenced, and there was no reason to suppose that the sheep we**breakine out of their own accord; The tar mer made investigations and on a road Xining one of lis back paddocks the marks of motor tyres were plainly vMble. leading to a gate in the ground were found, indicating that a tfmporary pen Over sixty sheep were missing from K paddock. For the next week the owner and his men watched nightly in the hope of making a capture, hut the raiders never returned, A, ewweeks later another farmer in this district lost twenty-five two-tooth «wes which it is presumed, were carried away in a motor-lorry.

In Broad Daylight. In another case, a shepherd, employed by one of the big station-holders m North Canterbury, saw three men leaving a paddock, each carrying something contained in a sack. A few minutes later his dogs came across .three skins, concealed beneath some gorse. He caught the men as they were getting into a motor-car, but three to one is a big handicap, and the shepherd came off second best in the encounter that followed. The Bheep had been shot and skinned by the men, who had apparentlv come out from Christchurch. There were no number plates visible on the car. ' Numerous other cases have been reported from North Canterbury in which sheep have disappeared in batches ranging from 580 to 120 in number. These sheep have never been traced, and no evidence has been left to show how they were taken.

Need for Legal Advice. In th 3 opinion of Mr Nicholson, the. dishonest sheepowner has his neighbour completely at his mercy. In most cases, said Mr Nicholson, the local constable was entrusted with the prosecution in sheep-stealing proceedings, and he was never in the hunt when opposed by the good lawyers for the defence. The time had come when the prosecuting police official should have the best legal advice, otherwise it was but little use taking sheep-stealing cases to Court. "One eminent Supreme Court Judge, now deceased, once declared that he would undertake to defend successfully any person charged with sheep-steal-ing," proceeded Mr 'Nicholson. "It is very easy to get a client off under the present Stock Act, which is the great difficulty we are up against." The only possible way to minimise the stealing of sheep, he said, was to organise an elaborate system of espionage, which was really ah impossibility. Mr Nicholson, however, contended that the difficulty could be overcome to a large extent if every purchaser of sheep were given a docket at the yards, this to contain the names of buyer and purchaser ' respectively, the number of sheep, their age and sex, and breeder's earmark. If this were, rigidly enforced it would make the task of the sbeepstealer a very difficult one. ___..