SUPREME COURT Verdict Of Guilty On Burglary Charge

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31862, 14 December 1968, Page 16

SUPREME COURT Verdict Of Guilty On Burglary Charge

A prosecution witness destroyed part of a prosecution exhibit a fingerprint in the trial in the Supreme Court yesterday of Henry Charles Gardiner, aged 29, a shoemaker (Mr D. H. P. Dawson), on a charge that on July 18 he. burgled Newmarket Butcheries, 762 Colombo Street. Gardiner was found guilty. Mr Justice Wilson was on the Bench. Mr N. W. Williamson appeared for the Crown. Gardiner was remanded for sentence on December 19. Constable James Edmund Brailey said he found on the lid of a shoe box in the shop a fresh thumb print. The print appeared after the lid was dusted with powder. Richard Walter Cane, a butcher, said the premises were locked when he left. Henry William Stone said the safe containing $l3OO was missing. The shoe box lid on which the print was found had been in the shop for just over a year. Constable Graham Stanley Jones said he took Gardiner’s fingerprints. Detective Gary Hilton Roddick said he had had 10 years experience on fingerprints in the fipger print bureau—in Wellington. When comparing a photograph of the box-lid print with those of Gardiner he found 16 points which agreed. In his mind there was no doubt the prints had been made by the same person. Mr Dawson cross-examined the witness on the relative effects on fingerprints, and their ability to last, of the presence of oil—both mineral and vegetable—on the fingers or the surface. His Honour then said to the witness: “Supposing rather more than 12 months before Contable Brailey had dusted the print the person whose print was there handled the box lid with an oily thumb, are you able to say whether or not it would have presented that appearance when Mr Brailey dusted it.” Detective Roddick said if the print had been put on with oil he did not think Mr Brailey would have dusted it before he photographed it. His Honour: You rule out an oily thumb on the basis that it would have left a mark which would not have required powder and powder would not have been used? Detective Roddick: Yes. A simple test for this question would be to rub my finger through the print on exhibit. If it was put there with an

oily finger it would make no material difference. If it had not you will see where my finger obliterates the ridge characteristics. I am quite prepared to do that for the Court if they so desire. Mr Dawson, when asked, said he wished the jury to see how long the print had lasted and he would like the exhibit preserved. The exhibit was at his Honours direction handed to the jury, examined by counsel and was then banded to the witness Who in an instant ran his finger through the exhibit. The exhibit then shown to the jury showed a clear middle section where the witness had run his finger through it. His Honour: Having carried out that experiment are you feeling competent to express an opinion as to how long before the print was discovered it was made? Detective Roddick: Less than 24 hours. . . . Detective Donald Norman Stewart said when he interviewed Gardiner, Gardiner said he did not know about the burglary. When driven past the shop he said he had not even known of its existence. Gardiner said he did not know how his print came to be on the box lid but he had worked as a shoe maker and repairer in various factories in Christchurch. His birthday was the day of the burglary and he had drunk with friends all the previous day. He said he could not find them. Cross-examined he said he had only given his explanation of his movements at the trial because previously he had no reason to.