Carburettors received from $35,000 car

Press, 22 July 1976, Page 4

Carburettors received from $35,000 car

Two carburettors were I stolen from a Ferrari 1 |car, valued at 535,000, ; while the vehicle was having an engine overhaul at a garage, Mr Justice Roper and a jury ] were told in the Supreme Court yesterday. After deliberating for two hours a jury found George Francis Williams, aged 36, ai car painter, guilty on a|charge of receiving two car-j burettors. of a total value ofi; $4OO, when he knew they! had been dishonestly ob-j' tained. His Honour remanded Wil-ji

Hams on bail to August 4; for sentence. Mr G. K. Panckhurst ap-| peared for the Crown and] Mr C. B. Atkinson for Wil-ii liams, who pleaded not; guilty to an alternative! charge of stealing and receiving the carburettors. Evidence was given by Stephen Hilton, of Governor’s Bay, the managing director of Hilton International, Ltd, that his firm's i ■ Ferrari car valued at $35,000 iwas taken to P.D.L. Motors,! I Ltd, in Ferry Road, in Octo-] her, 1975, for an engine] 'overhaul. ] The car was fitted with | Ithree down-draught Weber,

: carburettors. There was only, jone other model of this type I of Ferrari car in this country. Williams had no authority to sei! the carburettors. The carburettors were reamoved from the car and were overhauled and placed on shelves in a storage area. On March 1, a mechanic was reassembling the motor when he found that two of the carburettors had been stolen. Williams had done work lat P.D.L. Motors, Ltd, as a I spray painter, in February, i David John Aiken, a panel I beater, said that his business ] premises of Star Motors was in Maces Road, Bromley. He 'also used the premises for 'wrecking cars. Before Christmas, he was constructing a stock car and he mentioned to Williams that he wanted to buy carburettors and Williams sold him two for $24 each. Detective Constable Robert John Hardie said that on March 31, Williams told him that in January he had been working at P.D.L. Motors, Ltd, painting a racing car. After finishing work he went to the Lancaster Park Hotel where he was approached by

a man named Graydon Trapp who sold him two carburettors for $2O each. He had later sold them to Mr Aiken for $24 each. Extensive inquiries failed to reveal any person by the name of Graydon Trapp in Christchurch, Detective Hardie said. Mr Panckhurst, in his address to the jury, said Williams’s explanation for his possession of the stolen carburettors was the classic excuse of a person who bought stolen property from a man in a hotel bar whom he did not know and had not seen before or since. It was the Crown’s case that Trapp did not exist and that Williams either stole the carburettors while working at the firm or received them from the thief. In his address to the jury, Mr Atkinson said that there was a fatal gap in the Crown case. The Crown said that the theft took place after February 9 but the evidence showed that the carburettors must have been stolen some time in January and the jury should fin’d Williams not guilty on both charges.