ALLEGED THEFT OF £75

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25548, 16 July 1948, Page 3

ALLEGED THEFT OF £75

MAN COMMITTEb FOR TRIAL AT TIMARU From Our Own Reporter TIMARU, July 15. Statements which he was alleged to have made to the police were contradicted by Randall James Ferguson, a labourer, aged 36. of Te Ore Ore, Masterton, when he appeared in the Magistrate’s Court at Timaru to-day. Ferguson was charged with .the theft of money and cheques to the value of £75 from Gordon Joseph Collins, a cycle dealer, of Temuka. The accused, who conducted.his own defence, pleaded not guilty to the charge and was committed for trial at the Supreme Court at smaru next week Mr A. A. McLachlan, S.M., was on the Bench. Gordon Joseph Collins said that at 5.25 p.m. on July 8 he had gone to the cash box in the office of Ms shop, finding that £57 in cash and £26 and a few shillings in four cheques were missing. Interviewed by detectives at Temuka on July 8, Ferguson had said that he had about £54 on him. This money he had received from the Department of Agriculture in Dunedin for rabbitskins. One of the £1 notes in his possession, which had been written on, was identified by Collins as one of those stolen from his cash l box. Later, accused had said he had won the money on a double at the Wellington r; ces. Making a statement to the Court, accused said he made the statement about rabbitskins because he had previously been warned off the Wellington racecourse because he was a convicted person.