Court Rejects Charge Of Theft Of Double Tickets

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28531, 10 March 1958, Page 12

Court Rejects Charge Of Theft Of Double Tickets

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, March 9. *A charge against a mar Wed couple, Howard Bartley Mudford, aged 42, and Jean Mudfbrd. aged 41, of Korokoro, of stealing two 5s preprinted double tickets valued at £246 19s 6d, was disrtiissed in the Lower Hutt Magistrate’s Court by Mr J. R. Drummond, S.M. Evidence was given at the hearing on Tuesday that the complainant asked Howard Mudford over the telephone on February 1 to place a 10s double bet on two jhorses at a race meeting.

Mr C. G. Hogg, who appeared for both defendants, said it had been alleged that the tickets were the complainant’s property, but he had no legal right to them. He might have made a moral right to them, but theft could not be founded on a matter of honour. A casqal and off-hand arrangement had been made over the telephone, and this arrangement could be carried out or

varied as Mudford wished. He had bought the tickets with his own money, and the mere fact of his ..buying them had no legal significance. Senior-Sergeant A. C. J. Rush, prosecuting, submitted that Mudford had guilty intent. By depriving the complainant of the tickets the matter came within the definition of theft. The Magistrate said he agreed there were strong elements of suspicion, but there was only Mudford’s own admission that he had placed the bets for the complainant. There was no doubt the transaction had an unpleasant flavour, and it was extremely foolish to get into a position

where the chance of easy money led to the temptation to crime. The defendants might be civilly liable for the money, but were not criminally liable for theft. The Magistrate refused a request by counsel for an order for the return of the tickets to Mudford, saying that was a matter for civil action.