CRASH OF GLASS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 98, 19 January 1933, Page 7

CRASH OF GLASS

Christmas Morning Incident TWO MEN BEFORE COURT Charges of breaking and entering the premises of Messrs. R. Hannah and Co., Ltd., and stealing a pair of shoes and with wilfully, damaging a plateglass window valued at £l4, were preferred against Albert Janies Birchfield, a labourer, aged 27, and Leslie Raymond McDowall, a compositor, aged 23, in the Police Court yesterday morning. Both were committed to the Supreme Court for trial. Mr. T. B. McNeil, S.M., was on the bench. William George Allen, manager of the Cuba Street branch of Messrs. Hannah and Co., Ltd., said that after receiving a telephone call from the police be visited the shop and found that one of the windows in the vestibule had been broken and a pair of shoes valued at 16/6 was missing. The cost of replacing the window was £l4. Constable Holmes stated that early on Christmas morning he heard the sound of breaking glass and detailed how he apprehended the two men, who were the only persons in the street at the time, with the exception of a nightwatchman, Mr. Sheedy, and an intoxicated man. Accused came down the street with him, and on meeting them Mr. Sheedy said, “You two fellows came out of that doorway,” indicating the Te Aro Furnishing Company, where he had found the shoes, but one of the men denied it. Detective F. N. Robinson said he had interviewed accused and questioned them as to their movements up to the time the window was broken. Both admitted having heard the glass and being a few doors above Hannah’s, but said that they had not taken much notice. He asked them how they could account for the glass splinters in the case, and Birchfield said he had had the case at his home in a tin among broken glass and lamp globes. Accused denied either using the case to break the window or stealing the shoes. Norman Andrew Marris, analyst at the Dominion Laboratory, said he examined the specimens of glass taken from the attache case and tested them for specific gravity, retractive index and appearance under ultra violet light. The specimens agreed in ail three tests. He considered it highly probable that the splinters were from the same sheet of plate glass as the one produced. He had also examined about 20 other pieces of glass, but none of them had given the same results in all three tests. Accused pleaded not guilty and were committed to the Supreme Court for trial. Bail was renewed.