Neighbour watched burglars at house

Press, 5 October 1977, Page 4

Neighbour watched burglars at house

After deliberating for one hour and a quarter a jury in the Supreme Court yesterday found Tony Graeme Smith, aged 18, a plastic moulder, guilty on a charge of burglary of the home of Ronald Melvyn Davies, in Maidstone Road, on June 5. Mr Justice Somers remanded Smith in custody to October 14 for sentence.

Mr G. K. Panckhurst appeared for the Crown and Mr D. C. Fitzgibbon for Smith, who pleaded not guilty. The defence called no evidence. Anne Katherine Davies, of Maidstone Road, Avonhead, said that she and her husband went away for Queen’s Birthday week-end. When they returned on the Monday they found that their home had been broken into and that a stereo set and some rings had been stolen. The thieves had entered by breaking a catch on the window. They found a note from a detective stating that their house had been burgled, Mrs Davies said. Lynette Margaret Linton, who lives opposite Mrs Davies, said that on the afternoon of June 5 she was sitting reading by the fire when she heard a car door slam. She saw two youths going up the driveway of the house across the road. A few minutes later the youths returned and after sitting in a station waggon for a short time backed it up the driveway. Because she did not know if Mr and Mrs Davies were home she telephoned them but there was no reply. She saw the two youths loading articles into the vehicle and as it roared away towards Waimairi Road she took the number, Mrs Linton said.

Mark Kevin Nicolle, aged 18, said that he was serving a term in Borstal for a number of offences including the

burglary of a house in Maidstone Road which he had committed with a person called “Stretch,” who was not Smith. After Nicolle was declared hostile, and Mr Panckhurst was given leave to crossexamine Nicolle admitted that he had made a statement to the police in which he said that Smith was with him when he committed the burglary.

Nicolle said that the statement was not true and he had given Smith’s name to the police because he had a grudge against him. David John Tuatara, a taxi driver, said that on the afternoon of Sunday, June 5, he was delivering a passenger to Harris Crescent when a message came over the radio about a missing station waggon. He saw the vehicle parked near a telephone box and notified the Gold Band depot by radio. He drove the taxi up

behind the station waggon and when a patrol car came around the corner two youths ran from the vehicle. He caught one and handed him over to the police. The other got away. He was almost certain that the youth who got away was Smith, Mr Tuatara said.

Detective Sergeant John Charles Crookston said that when he interviewed Smith on June 7 he admitted being with Nicolle in the station waggon on June 5, but refused to answer any questions about the burglary and said he wanted to see his lawyer. In his address to the jury Mr Fitzgibbon said that suspicion was not enough grounds on which to find Smith guilty. There had been no positive identification of Smith as the person who was with Nicolle when he committed the burglary. The Crown had failed to prove its case.