REMOVAL OF CAR

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 115, 16 May 1936, Page 15

REMOVAL OF CAR

1 YOUNG MAN CHARGED

DEFENCE OF ALIBI

VERDICT OF NOT GUILTY

The identification of a two-gallon petrol tin was. relied upon to a large extent by the Crown in its case against Dudley Holdsworth Smith, aged 24, in the Supreme Court on Thursday and yesterday. ; Smith was charged with the. unlawful conversion of a. motor-car, valued at £303, at Welling- . ton on November 30 of last year. Mr. F. W. Ongley appeared for. Smith and Mr. C. Evans-Scott for the Crown. On the evening of November 30, about 11 o'clock, Mr. William Trevor Hume, farm manager, of Pirinoa, Featherston, parked his car in Cuba Street outside the Boyal1 Oak HoteL He returned to take his car away at 11.30 p.m., but found it had been removed. At 2p.m. the following day the car was recovered at Levin, where it had been abandoned. An empty two-gallon petrol tin was-found in the back seat and this was identified definitely as the property of the Petrol Supplies service station.' An employee of the service station said that on | the night the car was stolen a man who gave his name as A. F. Fisher called at the station and obtained six" gallons of petrol, four of which were put into the tank of the car the man had and the remaining two into the tin. ; . On December 18 the accused was interviewed, and evidence was given that he made a written statement in which he admitted he was the man . who had given the false name, of : Fisher when purchasing the petrol; According to the evidence, Smith said he > could not remember what he had done 1 with the tin; he had been at a party 'that evening and had borrowed a motor-car but did not know who was ,:the. owner of the car. • ■'■■•;■ i Some "time later the accused was • shown the tin in question at the de- : tective office and he said: "Yes, that js '; the tin but I 'don't know how.it got in > the- car." r Outlining the defence, Mr. Ongley V drew the attention of the jury to the fact that the Crown's case was ' that the car was taken not later than 11.30 p.m., and driven 150 or 160 miles V which, with continuous driving, would • mean that it had been going until about 4 a.m. next day. The car taken .- was a fawn one, but the bowser man called for the Crown had said that the car driven by the accused was .i, dark blue or black, and the defence X would call additional evidence ,to • support that. Witnesses would account ■ for the accused's movements at 11.45 • p.m., midnight, and 2.30 a.m. One witness who knew the accused only ' slightly would say that he noticed , him at a party that night because he ;. was particularly drunk and that the j accused asked him to have supper with i- him at 11.45 p.m. Another man would "., say he saw the accused/arrive at a ■ cafe.in a black car at midnight or later. The accused's' mother would give evidence that he was not home ■ at 2 a.m., but that as she was a little ' anxious she'looked into his room at ' 2.35 a.m. and he was in bed. His .father would say that his son was ■ home for breakfast on Sunday, Decerii- • ber 1. i' The accused, in evidence, said that he spent the afternoon of November j 30 at a city hotel where he met "some 3 chaps with a-car;"^'Some-timein the'j • evening he met them again, he thought, at another hotel. They all went to! a party about 8 p.m. in a car, and, S he could remember leaving the place '■■' and going to a cafe'for supper with those who had hired the car or owned it. While the others were • ordering ' supper he drove the car to the Petrol '• Supplies service station and as his • share of. the proceedings got some .i petrol. The car was a very dark ' blue. He left it outside the cafe, had come supper, and then walked home. He was absolutely-positive he was '; not at Levin that night, and he knew ' nothing at all about a fawn car. The jury found Smith not guilty '" arid he was discharged.