POLICE COURT

Evening Star, Issue 23564, 1 May 1940, Page 5

POLICE COURT

WEDNESDAY, MAY 1. (Before Mr J. R. Bartholomew, S.M.) THEFT OF BOOTS. Richard Carney (50) and Percy Leo Edmonds (.60) were jointly charged with the theft of a pair of men’s boots valued at 19s lid, the property of W. Harris and Co. Edmonds pleaded guilty and Carney not guilty. Evidence . was given that the men were seen in Stuart street yesterday afternoon, one with a boot under his arm, and another with a brown paper parcel. When accosted by a detective, Carney had denied any complicity in the theft. The accused Carney, on oath, said that he and Edmonds had come from Christchurch together on Saturday. On the Tuesday they had had a drink or two and then parted for a while. When witness rejoined his mate the latter had the boots. The Magistrate: Convicted; comment is superfluous. Detective-sergeant Hall said that eacb of the accused bad a list of previous convictions, and wore just sneak thieves. The Magistrate, remarking that the woman witness in the case who had informed the complainants when she saw the men with the boots in their posses-

sion was entitled to every commendation for her action* sentenced each of the accused to one month’s imprisonment. CHARGE DISMISSED. When Chin Doo Keng, a young Chinese, who was at the fruit shop of his uncle, Dixon Yep, in George street, saw Harold Herbert Hastie shoulder a case of Cox’s Orange Pippins and carry it towards his truck, he interposed and the case was eventually put back in the yard of the shop. But the uncle informed the police, and Hastie was charged with the theft. Mr 0. G. Stevens appeared for the accused, who pleaded not guilty. The accused had called at the shop to lift refuse for the pig farm of his employer, and his defence was that he took it for granted that the apples in the case in question were damaged and had been put there for removal. The two Chinese gave evidence to the effect that nailed-down cases of fruit were never placed in the yard for removal by the accused. The younger witness declared that Hastie and certain others who were with him had shut the intervening doors in order to obscure their movements from those in the shoo. Accused and liis witnesses denied that this had been done. Mr Stevens said that it was all a question of a highly excitable and sus-picious-minded Oriental imagining that he was being robbed. There was no evidence that the case of fruit had

been shifted by accused from the storeroom, as had been alleged. The accused, his brother, Sydney Hastie, and his employer, Edward Richard George Masters, gave evidence in support of accused’s statements, and His Worship, remarking that although the circumstances were certainly suspicious, it was possible that the explanation given by the accused and his witnesses was the correct one, dismissed the charge.