SUPREME COURT Man Convicted Of Theft Of Copper Wire

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32166, 9 December 1969, Page 10

SUPREME COURT Man Convicted Of Theft Of Copper Wire

A scrap-metal manager who found a quantity of scrap copper wire missing from the yard of the Rolrnet Ingot Company, Ltd, Maces Road, Bromley, on Saturday morning; August 30, immediately drove to the yard of Shakespeare Metals, Waltham (which he knew to be open), arriving in time to see a taxi draw up and a man alight carrying a sack of metal—which, when examined, was identified as that missing from the Rolrnet company. This evidence was given in the Supreme Court yesterday against Terrence Desmond Bradshaw, aged 35, a workman (Mr E. T. Higgins), who pleaded not guilty to a charge of theft of 751 b of scrap copper wire, valued at $29.25, the property of the Rolrnet Ingot Company, on August 29. Accused’s Evidence Bradshaw, in evidence in his own defence, said that he had found the metal in a coal-sack, lying in long grass beside a fence while taking a short-cut home across a vacant section to Maces Road on the evening of August 29. He had taken the sack to the home of a friend, and arranged for the letter to sell it, having thought the sack of metal had been “dumped.” Rejecting Bradshaw's explanation, the jury, after a three-quarter-hour retirement, found him guilty of theft, upon which he was remanded in custody, by Mr Justice Wilson, for sentence on December 15.

Keith Forsyth Rollo, manager of the Rolrnet company, said that be himself had put certain of the scrap metal, entwined in an old onion sack, into a drum at the Rolmet yard on the afternoon of August 29. When he challenged the man selling a sack of metal at Shakespeare Metals, and asked for the contents of the sack to be tipped out, he immediately recognised the onion sack with copper field coils in lb Under cross-examination, Mr Rollo conceded that it would be easy for an intruder to enter his premises at night

Identification Corroborated Evidence in support of Mr Rollo’s identification of part of the sack of metal—the field coils entangled in the onion bag—was given by Thomas William Appleby, a metal buyer for the Rolrnet company.

Bradshaw, in his evidence, said that the onion sack and coils had not been in the sack when he found it in the paddock—nor had the oniOn sack and coils been produced at the first deposition of evidence, Bradshaw said. (Detective Constable W. J. Nicholl had earlier confirmed, in cross-examination, that the charge of theft against Bradshaw had originally been dismissed by Justices of the

Peace, but had been re-laid after additional evidence of identification of the wire had been obtained.) Under cross-examination by the Crown Prosecutor (Mr N. W. Williamson), Bradshaw read from the original depositions given in the case that

Mr Rollo identified the copper field colls in “the smallmesh sack” when the whole sack of metal was emptied at Shakespeare Metals, but maintained that the coils and onion sack had not been produced as an exhibit. “A Cock-and-Bull Story” Mr Williamson, addressing the jury, submitted that the accused’s explanation of finding the sack of metal, when taking a short-cut home after being given a lift to Pages Road by a man he could not name, was “a cock-and-bull story.” Mr Higgins said that if the jury had any doubt that

Bradshaw had stolen the metal, he must be acquitted.

His Honour, in the course of summing up, told the jury it must consider Bradshaw’s explanation, although bearing in mind he was not required to prove his innocence—or, indeed, anything. Bradshaw, if his explanation were true, had had no right to take and sell a sack of metal found on what was, according to the evidence, private land fenced off—but if at the time he had honestly thought he could, then he had what was called “colour of right,” and in this case could not be convicted of theft.