SUPREME COURT Man Denies Charges Of Burglary And Theft

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32381, 21 August 1970, Page 4

SUPREME COURT Man Denies Charges Of Burglary And Theft

The trial of Makahuri Butler, aged 27, a truck driver, on two charges of burglary and one of theft began in the Supreme Court yesterday before Mr Justice Wilson and a jury of one woman and 11 men.

Butler has pleaded not guilty to charges of burglary of the explosives storage shed of Ashby Bergh and Company, Ltd, at 322 Manchester Street, on June 2 and June 14 and theft of 11 tins of mutton birds valued at $lBO, the property of Walter James Te Koeti.

The accused is represented by Mr J. E. Butler and Mr N. W. Williamson appears for the Crown, which is calling 11 witnesses. The case will continue today. Walter James Te Koeti said that he was semi-retired and occupied himself with muttonbirding and whitebaiting. He had an old bus at the back of his place in Dampier Street and he used it as a mobile caravan and to store mutton birds in. Mutton Birds Missing On the afternoon of June 14. Butler and a man named Bennett came to, buy a tin of mutton birds and while they were there they looked into the bus. The next morning he went to the bus to get mutton birds for a man and he found that the bus had been broken into and all the mutton birds had been stolen. He had a dog which slept on the front veranda and he knew that noone could come in that way without the dog barking. He found fresh mud and some sort of fabric on the fence where somebody had gone over.

Philip Stewart, warehouse manager of Ashby Bergh and Company. Ltd, said that just after midday on June 1 he went to his firm’s gelignite and wire rope store in Manchester Street The building was secured when he left it. The accused had been employed by the firm from No-

vember, 1966, to January, 1968, as a truck driver. To Mr Butler Mr Stewart said that there were four keys to the explosives store. He found that Butler was a reliable and conscientious worker.

Andrew James Burrell, an employee of Ashby Bergh and Company, said that on June 27, when he went to get some detonators from the firm's store he found the door partially open and the lock lying on the ground and he reported the matter to Mr McKinn. Padlocks Off

James William Caukwell, a storeman, said that on the morning of June 15 he found the padlocks off the door of the wire rope store and the door of the explosives magazine.

John Francis Martin, a supervisor, said that he made inquiries on two occasions to see what was missing from the explosives store. On the first occasion, June 2, he found that 391 b of gelignite and two coils of fuse were missing, and on the second, June 15, that all the detonators were missing. Nothing was taken from the gelignite store as it had all been sold on the previous Friday. He identified cartons that were produced as coming from his firm, and said that they had contained gelignite and fuses. Ross Pinn, manager of Oxford Transport, said that his firm’s Christchurch depot was in Tanner Street, Woolston. On June 17, at the request of the police, he conducted an experiment with the front double doors of the premises and found that the doors could be opened without undoing the lock. Butler had been employed by his firm as a truck driver for a period of about 12 months up to June 15. At one stage some months before that date Butler did have a key to the premises as he was working on a job and had to start early in the morning. The key enabled him to get to the petrol bowser, but it

had been returned for some time.

On the afternoon of June 1 he went into a room in his firm’s premises to splice some rope, and found some goods stacked along the wall and covered with sacks.

The goods consisted of cartons, one of which contained gelignite and the other a haversack which contained a portable radio, spanners, screwdrivers, a jemmy bar, gloves, a torch and batteries, a black scarf, and a cap resembling a Balaclava. He telephoned the police. He thought that the radio was one Butler used to carry in his truck. Several mutton bird tins were also stacked along the wall. That day Butler was working at the Hornby railway siding. He left the premises at 8 a.m. and did not return during the day, said Mr Pinn. Norman Patrick Alcorn, the Government Analyst with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, said that after scientific examination he concluded that flakes of paint attached to muttonbirds and the haversack could have come from Butler’s car and ginger coloured hairs found in the Balaclava could have come from Butler.