Man guilty of burgling three hotels

Press, 23 July 1986, Page 4

Man guilty of burgling three hotels

A jury in the District Court late yesterday found Ronald Anthony Dick guilty of three burglaries of country hotels, in which money, liquor and other property, totalling more than $5BOO, was said to have been stolen. Dick, aged 43, a machinist, had pleaded not guilty to charges of breaking and entering the Springston. Hotel last November 26, and the Gateway Hotel, Fairlie, and the Fairlie Hotel, both on December 4. On the jury’s verdicts of guilty, reached after a retirement of an hour and 35 minutes, Judge Paterson remanded Dick in custody to July 29 for sentence. The Judge told jurors after the verdicts were announced that Dick had 12 previous convictions for burglary. 'Mr B. M. Stanaway appeared for the Crown, and Mr A. N. D. Garrett for Dick. Evidence was that money, liquor and other items worth $3OOO were taken from the Springston Hotel, money and property worth $BOO from the Fairlie Hotel and money and property worth between $2OOO and $3OOO from the Gateway Hotel. Another man charged at an earlier hearing with the same burglaries had pleaded guilty to the offences.

Some property from the burglaries was found in the other man’s house. The police found two calculators, each of which was identified as having come from the burglaries at Fairlie, in Dick’s house. In an oven were found coins, Including two damaged coins which were identified as similar to coins taken from the Springston Hotel, and which staff there kept aside from other takings so that they would not damage machines in the bar. Mr Garrett, in his address to the jury, said there had been no direct evidence of who broke into the hotels, and the Crown’s case was of guilt by association, founded on suspicion, whereas the jury’s verdict should be based not on suspicion, but on proof beyond reasonable doubt. The Crown had not charged Dick with alternative charges of receiving the property, knowing it to be stolen. He submitted that jurors should consider the possibility that the items found at Dick’s house had come into his possession without his being the burglar. The substantial proceeds from the burglaries had been found at the other man’s house, not Dick’s.