GOODS FROM SHIP’S CARGO

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 257, 28 July 1939, Page 16

GOODS FROM SHIP’S CARGO

Watersider Convicted On Receiving Charges COURT GRANTS LEAVE TO APPEAL "If these offences .were not so frequent I would have imposed a fine, but 1 dare not,” said Mr. W. F. Stilwell, S.M., in the Magistrates’ Court, Wellington, yesterday, when sentencing William MeNicliolas, wharf labourer, aged 41, to five weeks’ imprisonment on each of two charges of receiving stolen property, the sentences to be concurrent. Accused, who pleaded not guilty, was charged with receiving a roll of dress material, valued at 37/6, the property of the Federal Steam Navigation Company, and with receiving three pairs of stockings valued at 9/4}, the property of some person or persons unknown. He was charged .also with stealing the dress material and the stockings, but the theft charges were dismissed. Mr. F. W. Ongley, who appeared for accused, applied for leave for a general appeal. The application was granted and accused was allowed, bail. Detective-Sergpant P. Doyle prosecuted, and the police alleged in evidence that at 6.5 p.m. on July 7, accused was arrested for drunkenness : nd taken to the Mount Cook police station. While he was being searched a roll of unwrapped floral dress material was found under his pullover and three pairs of stockings were discovered in a coat pocket. At first accused said he did. not know whore he had obtained them, but, when sober, said the stockings and material were given to him by two sailors in an hotel. He did not know the sailors and could not describe them. It was alleged also that the property found on accused, and produced in Court, had' been part of the cargo of the Japanese vessel Sydney Maru, which arrived at Wellington on July 1 from Dunedin, and sailed on July 8 for Auceland and Lyttelton. Evidence was given also that rolls of dress material were missing .from certain cases discharged from the vessel. .Some of the cases, it was stated, showed signs of having been pillaged. Accused said in evidence that he went to work on July 7, but the morning was very cold and windy, and the waterskiers on that particular job deckled by ballot that it was too windy to work. He added that he had wanted to work, and recollected going back for a second ballot at 11.30 a.ni., but remembered nothing of the other happenings that day. He was asked by the police next morning to sign for his property, and said he protested that the dress material and stockings shown on the list were not his. Evidence was given by a number of men who knew accused and saw him during the day of his arrest. They said there was no sign of the dress material alleged to have been concealed beneath his pullover. The magistrate said he would not accept the proposition that accused could not remember what had happened, and said he did not believe the property came into his possession in some mysterious way. The magistrate added, that the circumstances justified a conviction on the receiving charges, but not on the theft charges. Apart from one conviction for drunkenness, accused had not been before the Court previously. While working on the wharf he had received on an average £7 10/- a week in wages.