Security warden tells of purchase

Press, 23 September 1983, Page 7

Security warden tells of purchase

A senior security warden at Christchurch Airport, and former police sergeant, would not have “fired his whole career away” for the sake of a stolen camera, his counsel (Mr B. McClelland, Q.C.) submitted in the District Court yesterday-

He was opening the defence case for the warden, Evan John Niven, aged 47, against alternative charges of theft or receiving a camera and accessories valued at sAust993, which an Australian tourist was said to have left in a hired security locker at the airport’in July, 1981. The trial, before Judge Fraser and a jury, began on Wednesday. The defence case opened yesterday afternoon. The case will resume today.

Mr D. J. L. Saunders appeared for the Crown. Mr McClelland and Ms D. E. Shirtcliff appeared for the defendant, who has denied both charges.

Prosecution evidence had been that the camera and equipment went missing from a locker in July, 1981, after being placed there by an Australian tourist while he travelled south.

A year later the defendant sold an automatic winder to a second-hand dealer and this was found to be one of the stolen items. The police then found the camera and lens at the defendant’s wife’s home.

The defendant, in a written statement, and to questioning by Detective SeniorSergeant R. G. Carson in July last year, said he had

been on security duty on an afternoon and evening shift about nine or 10 months before and had seen two persons on the mezzanine floor at the airport. They had wanted to stay overnight to board an early flight to Australia the next day, but were told they could not stay on the premises. One of the men then left but the other man, who had camera gear on the seat alongside him, stayed and talked with the defendant. The man said he was from Australia, and said he might use the equipment and then drop it off before returning home.

The man, who he knew only as Duncan, told him the equipment was worth about $BOO. The defendant said his impression was that Duncan had bought the equipment duty-free, because of the packaging. The defendant told Duncan that he might be interested in purchasing the camera and equipment, and gave him his name and telephone number.

The defendant said he then advertised his own

camera for sale, and sold it for $350, and Duncan called on him seven or eight days after their first meeting and asked if he was still interested in the camera gear. Subsequently the defendant purchased the camera and equipment for $6OO. The defendant said it never crossed his mind that Duncan might have stolen the gear. He was quite sure Duncan had bought it dutyfree.

The defendant said he did not steal the camera and accessories and did not purchase them knowing or suspecting they had been stolen.

He said he had bought the gear in good faith. Mr McClelland, outlining the defence case, said the defendant had been a police sergeant before becoming an airport security warden. He had sold the camera winder to a second-hand shop where he was known, and produced an identification card. He knew perfectly well that such businesses had their records examined for stolen property. If he had known that the equipment was stolen that would have been the last thing he would have done with it, in view of where he worked. Mr McClelland submitted that the defendant was not a thief, or a man who would simply "fire his whole career away,” and all he stood for, for the sake of a stolen camera. In evidence the defendant confirmed that the explanation that he had given in his statement to the police was the truth.