SHEEP STEALING.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20089, 19 November 1930, Page 3

SHEEP STEALING.

TWO MEN REMANDED FOR SENTENCE. (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRA.M.I | HAMILTON, November 18. i'rancis Joseph Walmsley, aged 23 years, and Herbert Coristian Olsen, aged 34 years, charged on six counts of sheep stealing at Te Mata, in the hills between Raglan and Kawhia, appeared in the Supreme Court to-day. The Crown alleged a system bordering on banditry. The two accused were alleged to have gone out by night amongst the flocks of neighbours and to have carried and driven their sheep away. Suspicion having fallen on the two men, they were watched night aiter night by a party of neighbours, who, sometimes hid in a crevice along the sea coast known as Lightning Cave, where they stated they, observed the whole procedure. Later the police discovered the heads of sheep removed from the bodies with the ears missing, sheep skins minus the ears, sheep with altered earmarks. blood and ear clippings in the bush, and the entrails of the animals hidden in a swamp. It was also a '~ leged that one of the men declared after his arrest that he would give hundreds to keep the matter out or Court. Walmsley was charged with stealing 50 sheep Olsen with stealing one sheep, and both with stealing four sheep. After considerable evidence bad been heard, both accused altered theirPP ea of not guilty to guilty, on all but one charge.