Warden not guilty at second trial

Press, 24 September 1983, Page 5

Warden not guilty at second trial

A senior security warden at Christchurch airport was found not guilty in the District Court yesterday of alternative charges of theft or receiving of a camera and equipment which had been left by a tourist in an airport locker. The defendant, Evan John Niven, aged 47, had denied the alternative charges. They related to 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.

Judge Fraser discharged the defendant.

The jury reached its verdict early last evening after a retirement of four hours

and a quarter. It was the second trial on these charges faced by the defendant. In the first, early last month, the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict on the charges. The complainant, Edmund Joseph Nicholls, of Sydney, has been brought to New Zealand three times to give evidence — at each of the trials, and at the preliminary hearing earlier this year.

The trial opened on Wednesday afternoon.

Mr D. J. L. Saunders appeared for the Crown, and Mr B. McClelland and Ms D. E. Shirtcliff for the defendant. Crown evidence had been

that the camera and equipment went missing from a security locker in July, 1981. A year later the defendant had sold one of the items, a camera winder, to a secondhand dealer. Police then found the camera and a lens at the defendant’s wife’s house.

The defendant told police and said in evidence that he had purchased the camera and gear from an Australian he had seen at the airport. He thought they had been bought duty free and it did not occur to him that the Australian, who he knew only as Duncan, might have stolen the equipment. He had bought the gear in good faith, he said.