No beating-up, says jury

Press, 15 December 1977, Page 7

No beating-up, says jury

A jury in the Supreme: i Court yesterday completely; i rejected allegations made by)! a young man that he had;l been beaten up by two de-ii tectives. < In little over half an hour a jury found Keith Mark t Oldroyd, aged 21, an unem- < ployed Englishman, guilty i on six charges of burglary 1 which included two doctors’ 1 surgeries and a chemist I shop. J Mr Justice Somers re-1 manded Oldroyd in custody): to December 16 for sentence. 11 Mr R. L. Kerr appeared:: for the Crown and Messrs J. \• Cadenhead and W. F. Mor-,t gan for Oldroyd who) i pleaded not guilty to all)< charges. After the jury returned itslt guilty verdicts the foreman)! added a rider that the jury.: believed that there wasjt absolutely no foundation for): the allegations made by Old- 1 royd against the two detec- < fives. Evidence was given during < the trial that Oldroyd had i made a lengthy statement I detailing how he had com- t

mitted the various burglaries. Property stolen in the burglaries was found in two bags in a van used by Oldroyd and in his flat in Gloucester Street. Oldroyd said in evidence that the” two detectives who came to his flat had repeatedly punched him, twisted his arm behind his back and had put a metal wastepaper basket over his head and beat it with a hard object. Oldroyd admitted that signatures on every page of the statement were very similar to his own but he said he had not committed the burglaries and he had not made the statement produced in Court. To Mr Kerr Oldroyd said that he had signed someblank pages of property, sheets. The initials placed by] the corrections in the! statement had not been put] there by him. He had notj complained to anyone at the! police station, Magistrate’s * Court, prison or to the] prison doctor that he had] been punched by the detec-i tives. 1