MAGISTRATE’S COURT Stolen ewe killed with blunt knife

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33061, 31 October 1972, Page 12

MAGISTRATE’S COURT Stolen ewe killed with blunt knife

A ewe stolen from a farm during last week-end was slaughtered with a blunt knife to provide meat for a barbecue and its offal was deposited on the front steps of the New Brighton Police Station, Mr H. J. Evans, S.M., was told when three young men appeared before him in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Murray Noel Walker, aged 18, an apprentice cabinet-

maker, pleaded guilty to > stealing the sheep and slaughtering it in a manner likely to cause it unnecessary pain and suffering. Barry Raymond Hayes, aged 25, a machine operator, pleaded guilty to the theft charge and also depositing offensive litter — the offal — at the police station. The second charge was brought under the Litter Act, 1968. The third defendant, Murray John Pine, did not plead to the charge of theft. The defendants appeared in the dock together. They were remanded to November 6 in custody. Detective Sergeant P. L. Ward said that the defendants, in the company of two others, caught the sheep in a paddock of a farm at Leithfield on Saturday. The

sheep was taken back to Christchurch in a car where Walker slaughtered it with a blunt knife, taking about a dozen strokes.

Walker later gave himself up to the police. In explanation he said that he thought the knife had been sharp enough for the purpose. He offered no explanaUon for stealing the animal. Hayes and two others put'the offal from the sheep in a plastic bag and left the intestines, liver, and throat on the steps of the New Brighton Police Station, where they were clearly visible to the public from the footpath. The head of the ewe was left near the letter-box at the station. Hayes was fully co-operative with the police when they spoke to him and said he had been “a bit full” at the time the offence was committed. He had been annoyed with the police for confiscating liquor from the group on an earlier occasion. ASSAULT Christopher Haydon Turton, aged 20, a workman, pleaded guilty to charges of assaulting Owen Hale Hobson and Lindsay Percy Brooks on October 28. He was convicted and remanded in custody to November 6 for Detective Sergeant Ward said that Turton was one of a group who attempted to gate-crash a pary in Horotane Valley Road about 11.50 p.m. on October 28. When he was refused entry he swung a knife at one of the complainants, causing a slight cut on an arm. Turton threatened the second complainant with the knife when the complainant tried to reason with him. He told the police he had been drinking and acted on the spur of the moment. He wanted to be the “big boy" in front of his companions. BREAKING OF BOTTLE

Anthony Tauhore Moore, aged 19, a showman, was fined $5O for wilfully breaking a bottle in Cathedral Square on Saturday evening. Detective Sergeant Ward said that Moore threw the bottle and it smashed on the ground abou 30f away. No-one was injured. The Magistrate said that the offence had “considerable nuisance value "