THEFT OF SACKS

Evening Star, Issue 21900, 11 December 1934, Page 1

THEFT OF SACKS

YOUNG MAN BEFORE THE COURT In the Police Court yesterday afternoon Alexander Francis Nieper was charged with the theft of eighty sacks, valued at £2, the property of AATIHam Gumming Hendry. He was represented by Mr O. Stevens and pleaded not guilty. ' _ Detective-sergeant Doyle said that the complainant was a baker and pastrycook. He had a ehaffhouse in Goodall street in which he stored his empty flour bags. On November 6he found thet door of the ehaffhouse broken open and a number of bundles of -flour and chaff sacks were missing. He secured his flour from a number of different mills, while he also stocked a Proteena meal supplied by an Ashburton mill. These last-named bags bore his initials. On November 9 the accused approached a carrier named Ayres and asked him to take seventy or eighty sacks to the Otago Bag Depot to sell them, and offered to share the proceeds of the sale with Ayres. He said he did not want to go to the depot himself as he owed money there. Ayres went to an address in Forbury road given him by the accused and found seventy-nine sacks in bundles, which he sold for £1 19s 6d to the Bag Depot. AA 7 hen Ayres met the accused and was giving him his share of the proceeds Detectives AVeils and Gibson came on the scene and the accused left hurriedly. Later the accused came to Ayres’s place in a taxi and told him that the police were on the trail of some stolen sacks. He told Ayres to tell the police that the sackstvere purchased from an Assyrian who had , been before the court, and would therefore come under suspicion. The following day the accused again saw Ayres and suggested an alternative story, but Ayres said that if he were interviewed by the police he would tell the truth. Six of the sacks recovered from the Bag Depot bore Hendry’s initials, and the others bore the brands of the mills with which he dealt. After hearing lengthy evidence. Mr Bundle said that the evidence regarding the sacks—whether they were stolen property—was in some respects unsatisfactory, but the witness Hendry had convinced him that he was absor lately certain of the identity of the sacks. ,• The accused had made lying statements to the dealers and to the detectives inquiring into the case, and. considering all the circumstances and the fact that sacks had been disposed of in suspicious circumstances, he would bo convicted of theft. Mr Stevens said the accused was a relief worker 'with a, family of three young children. The accused was remanded lor a week on lu’s own recognisance ol . £25 in order that the probation officer might submit a report.