Supreme Court Found Not Guilty Of Receiving Stolen Whisky

Press, Volume C, Issue 29587, 9 August 1961, Page 9

Supreme Court Found Not Guilty Of Receiving Stolen Whisky

A jury in the Supreme Court yesterday found Noel Park, aged 37, a car dealer, not guilty of receiving 12 bottles of whisky valued at £2l 6s. the property of Ballins Industries, Ltd., on March 11. knowing the goods to have been dishonestly obtained. Mr Justice Richmond discharged Park. The jury took 10 minutes to reach its verdict. Mr C. M. Roper appeared for the Crown. Park was represented by Mr R. A. Young. Mr Roper said that nine cases of spirits were stolen from Ballins Industries, Ltd., when the premises were broken into early on the morning of March 11. The two men who broke into the store. Leslie John Stack, aged 21, and a youth aged 17, were traced by police and later sentenced for their crime, and they would give evidence that later on the morning of the theft the liquor was loaded into the boot of the youth’# car and taken into the city. At the intersection of Manchester and Allen streets the men met a salesman, Richard George Green, who was employed by Lloyds Car Comer, and asked if he was interested in purchasing some bottles. Green looked at the whisky but did not purchase any. About this time the accused arrived, and was asked if he would like to buy some of the liquor. Evidence would be that the accused asked if I the liquor was "hot.” and ; that the youth told him that it was off the boats said Mr Roper. The accused agreed to buy 12 bottles at £1 each Hie retail price was £1 16s. ■ The deal was not com- ; pleted there, but the accused asked the youth to drive to the back entrance of his car sale yards There, the whisky was loaded into the accused’s car and he paid Stack £l2. Interviewed by detectives on April 7. the accused admitted he had bought the whisky and that the deal was completed in the right-of-way to his car sales premises. When the accused's house was searched five whisky

bottles, four of them empty, were found, and he admitted that the bottles were some that he had purchased from the men, Mr Roper said. Mr Roper said the jury was entitled to infer that the accused had a guilty knowledge from the circumstances of the transcation, and the price at which he had bought the whisky. Crown Evidence Louis Keith Newmigan, a customs clerk employed by Ballins Industries, Ltd., said when cross-examined by Mr Young that the cost of whisky, without duty or taxes, was about 10s a bottle. Duty and taxes were about £1 a bottle and the wholesale price within the trade was £1 10s 3d. He was aware that goods were duty free three miles out’ from New Zealand waters. The youth who had taken part in the theft said that when he asked the accused if he wanted to buy the liquor the accused asked it it was stolen. “I said no, it was off the boats, and he said he had to drive back to his yard and would meet me there. He then purchased the 12 bottles,” said the witness. In cross-examination the youth said he had tried to satisfy Park that the whisky had come from the ships. Stack, in evidence, said he worked on ships about 1959 before he was “pulled off” by police. He had broken into Ballins to help to finance the purchase of a car. Cross-examined, Stack said he had to act very quickly in getting rid of the whisky before the police and newspapers learnt of the breaking and entry. Stack said he was dressed like a seaman, and told Park about three times that the whisky had come off the ships. Richard George Green said he had just finished talking to the youth when Park stopped his car. He said he went over to Park and told him about the conversation with the youth. “Park said he was not particularly interested in the whisky, but I said it was all

right as it was off the ships," said Green. To Mr Young, he said he did not know where the whisky came from and did not want anything to do with it. Park did not want to buy it at first and asked several times if it was all right. “I told Park I would not put him in crook. I think he relied on me,” Green said. Further examined by Mr Roper, he said he thought he was doing Park a favour by getting him the whisky cheaply. He said a statement he made to the police that he “knew damn well” the youth was lying when he said the whisky was off the boats had been made when he was very upset about the whole business, and he was not under oath at the time Defence Submissions Mr Young elected not to call evidence for the defence. In his submissions, Mr Young said a fatal flaw in the Crown’s case was that no evidence had been given that the accused knew the whisky was dishonestly obtained when he purchased it. Stack and his accomplice had only a limited time to dispose of the whisky to gullible persons and cash in on their illgotten gains, before news of the breaking and entry of Ballins was widely known, he said. "Evidence for the Crown has been that after Park was asked if he wanted some liquor he asked if it was “hot,’ and was assured it had come from the ships, the inference being that it had come into New Zealand free of du‘y.” Green. Stack, and the other youth had all persuaded the accused to make the purchase only after satisfying him that the whisky was not the proceeds of crime, said Mr Young. A price of £1 a bottle for duty-free whisky was not an unreasonably low one nor one which would arouse suspicion, he said. Mr Young said the case must rank as one of the weakest ever to come before the Supreme Court. Park was foolish and gullible, but was not criminal. He was of unblemished record, in business in a licensed industry, and would not have staked his reputation merely to obtain a few bottles of liquor.