SUPREME COURT Builder Acquitted Of Receiving Trailer

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31091, 21 June 1966, Page 6

SUPREME COURT Builder Acquitted Of Receiving Trailer

A man who had told a detective that he could not help him in inquiries over a stolen trailer, later said: “I’ve got it What’s the story” This was alleged against Alfred Harold Pilling, aged 44, a builder, when he stood trial by jmy in the Supreme Court yesterday on a charge of receiving the trailer, valued at £52 10s s knowing it to have been stolen.

Pilling (Mr M. J. Glue), who pleaded not guilty, said in evidence that he first did not believe Detective Constable J. P. Bermingham when he Said that the trailer was stolen, and had thought the detective was “trying to catch him” about not registering, it. Pilling, said that he had got the trailer from a ■ farmer workmate at West Arm, Manapouri, named Norman Templeton, in payment of a gambling debt for £2O, and had no idea that it had been stolen. His story was accepted by the jury, which, after a retirement of an hour, returned a verdict of not guilty. Mr Justice Macarthur ordered Pilling to be discharged. Crown’s Case The Crown’s case, led by Mr C. M. Roper, was that the traiier had been stolen from a car wreckers’ yard in Madras street on November 1, but was recognised being towed by a truck in Christchurch on December 21, in spite of being painted a different colour. The trailer bore a numberplate registered in the name of a man, Bruce, a motor mechanic fa Trafalgar street, St. Albans, who was found to have lent his own trailer to Pilling’s partner in a building business. Questioned by the police, Pilling had said he had got the trailer from a man he had met in the Star and Garter Hotel, but had declined to name him.

The real issue, said Mr Roper, was Pilling’s knowledge or not of whether the traiier was stolen. As to that, the jury should consider four points—(Pilling had first denied knowledge of a stolen trailer, and then said he had it; had not registered it but used a number-plate from Bruce’s trailer; had had it altered and painted; and on

his own story obtained a brand-new trailer worth £52 at a bargain price. Accused’s Evidence Pilling, in his evidence, said he had accepted the trailer from his friend Templeton, in payment of the debt, as the latter was returning to Australia en route to a job with Kaiser’s in South Africa. As it was not registered, a num-ber-plate from the borrowed trailer was used, the plate being interchanged as each traiier was used. The trailer was altered for carrying loads of timber, and painted green, with yellow wheels, in conformity with his firm’s other vehicles.

Pilling’s evidence was corroborated in part by his partner, Carnegie Nielson. Cross-examined, Pilling said that the trailer had not been registered as he and Nielson were short of money. Detective Constable Bermingbam had first been inquiring about “a traiier,” he said, and he had thought the detective was trying to catch him about the number-plate. Put to him that the detective had inquired about stolen trailer,” Pilling said he had at first not believed this, but, on being given a fuller description of it, realised it was the one he had from Templeton. Defence Address Mr Glue, addressing the jury, submitted that Pilling was a rough diamond, but not a criminal. He had hedged about the trailer at first because of his switching the number-plate, but there was a world of difference between that and the full-scale crime of receiving. However, in the witness-box, Pilling had given his explanation of how he came by the trailer—“and I submit it was an honest one,” Mr Glue said.

Mr Roper asked the jury was it not a coincidence that the man Templeton had squared his debt with Pilling at the very time the latter wanted a trailer? When pressed by the police about the stolen trailer, Pilling had said: “I’ve got it,” not that he had one which sounded “very like it.” “How did he know he had the stolen trailer?” Mr Roper said.