REMOVAL OF CAR

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 195, 15 May 1936, Page 15

REMOVAL OF CAR

Young Man Charged With Unlawful Conversion SUPREME COURT CASE An allegation of the unlawful conversion of a motor-car from Cuba Street, on the night of November 30, last year, is laid against Dudley Holdsworth Smith, engineer, aged 24, in a case which opened in the Supreme Court, Wellington, yesterday afternoon, before Mr. Justice Blair and a jury. The car, which ■was removed from its parking place, was the property of William Trevor Hume, farm manager, Featherston, and was valued at £303.

Mr. C. Evans Scott presented tbe case for the Crown, and Mr. F. W. Ongley is appearing for accused. On the night of November 30, 1935, Hume had parked his car in Cuba Street, outside the Royal Oak Hotel, about 11 pan., and when he returned half an hour later tbe vehicle was missing, said Mr. Scott in opening the case for the prosecution. It was recovered at 2 p.m. the following day at Levin, where it had been abandoned. The owner of tbe car would say in evidence that when he claimed the car there was a two-gallon petrol tin on the back seat, and a constable, who recovered the car, would say that the tin was there when he found the vehicle, and it had not been interfered with by anyone until tbe time when Hume took charge of the car the same night. The tin had been definitely identified as the property of Petrol Supplies Service Station, at the corner of Taranaki and Wakefield Streets. Evidence would be given by an attendant at the service station that on the night on which the car bad been stolen a man. who gave the name of A. F. Fisher, bad been supplied with the tin full of petrol, together with other petrol which had been put into the tank of the car. There were definite marks by which the tin could be identifier. On December 18 accused had been interviewed in connection with the purchase of the petrol tin, and in a written statement in which he had admitted giving a false name, and being supplied with the petrol tin. He also admitted that he had been to a party on that night, and that he had borrowed a car, but he could not remember whose ear it was. .Later he had said: “Yes, that is the tin, but I don’t know how it got into the car.”. The case for the Crown was closed immediately before the adjournment yesterday, and the defence will be heard to-day.