Retrial On Charge Of Stealing Furniture

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30130, 14 May 1963, Page 14

Retrial On Charge Of Stealing Furniture

(New Zea'ii't pres* Association)

WELLINGTON, May 13

The retrial* of Thomas James Morgan, aged 34, a workman, on charges including theft of a truckload of furniture from the Khandallah house of Mr Foss Shanahan on March 29, 1960, began in the Supreme Court today Morgan was charged before Mr Justice Leicester and a jury with stealing £415 Ils worth of furniture, with converting a truck, and with receiving a suit valued at £l5 knowing it to have been dishonestly obtained. The assistant Crown Prosecutor, Mr J. D. Murray, is conducting the prosecution; Mr M. H. Boys appears for Morgan. In 1960 Morgan was convicted on the three charges and sentenced to imprisonment. This year the Court of Appeal, on representations from Morgan that more evi-

dence had become available, set aside the convi<Stiona and ordered the new trial.

Mr Murray said today that while Mr Shanahan was overseas in‘March, 1960, his house had been leased to Alexander Anderson, a Mormon missionary. The furniture had disappeared while Mr and Mrs Anderson were away from Wellington for one night. • There was no dispute that the offences had taken place, he said, but the accused claimed that he was not one of the people who committed them. Evidence for the prosecution was still being heard when the Court adjourned until tomorrow.

Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.—John Stuart Mill.