SUPREME COURT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 195, 19 July 1939, Page 6

SUPREME COURT

CHARGE OF THEFT. RE ALAND FOR SENTENCE. The trial was concluded in _ the Supreme Court at Palmerston North yesterday before His Honour Air Justice Blair, of Charles James Humid, aged 47, an engine-driver, on a charge of stealing, at Palmerston North on March o, 1938,a bicycle valued at _£9 10s, the property of Frederick Keith Robbie, or, alternatively, with receiving it knowing it to have been dishonestly obtained.

S. W. Evans, hotel broker, of Palmerston North, said he was formerly licensee of the Princess Hotel, where accused stayed for several months, leaving in about May of last year. 'There was a detached storeroom, and about March, 1938, witness saw there a strange new-looking cycle with a lighting set and the name “Robbie” on it. Tho machine was there for about two months, hut witness could not ascertain who was the owner. Two months alter the cycle had first been found there, the lock had been broken oil' the storeroom door, hjit only tho machine was missing. The cycle at the hotel boro no similarity to that produced in Court, but ho could identify the letters “hie” on tho same part of the machine in the Court as lie had seen the name “Robbie” on the cycle at the hotel. Evidence for the Crown was also given by Detective Power, Constable Purvey and Lloyd Athol Patehett. i’iiis concluded the Crown’s evidence and Air A. At. Ongle.v, who appeared for accused, intimated that he did not propose to call any evidence tor the defence.

Addressing the jury, counsel for accused said the latter’s explanation that lie purchased the cycle in January, 1935, was tho strongest possible proof that he had not stolen it, as the theft did not occur until Alarch, 1938. If he had taken a stolen cycle knowingly into the two shops, one issuing the transfers it bore, and the other being the agency for that type of ltiaeliine, he must have realised that it would he detected as a stolen machine. Accused had bought two cycles from Boucher’s and tho third from a man at tho hotel. There had been an interchange of parts by someone, and anyone having access to the store-room at the hotel could easily have done this, as the cycle was later missed from there. The cycle produced in Court could only have been enamelled by a tradesman. Possession by accused of a stolen cycle fourteen months after its theft did not prove that he stole it, and his explanation that lie bought it from a man in an hotel was a very reasonable one.

His Honour, in summing up, said the facts were that Air. Robbie had possessed a cycle which had been stolen and was now identified, though some parts of the machine had been changed. Accused was found in charge of it, getting it repaired thirteen months Inter. The doctrine of recent possession applied where stolen articles were found in the possession of the accused man after a recent theft. and Judges directed juries that such circumstances indicated an association with the crime, particularly where the explanation was of a doubtful nature. Accused must have got the cycle remarkably soon after it was stolen. A machine was seen in the store-room of an hotel where accused stayed, and it was a remarkable coincidence that a cycle marked “Robbie” had mysteriously got into a locked liquor store there. Next it disappeared after an interval of about two months, hut nothing else was taken from the store, the cycle obviously being the objective. Then it turned up in an altered condition in the possession of accused, who had taken it to a shop for repairs. The cycle, on accused’s own admission, had been in his possession practically all the time since it had been stolen. Accused said he had bought the cveln from a man at an hotel for £o. The jury might regard that as a suspicious transaction, or they might not. If a man could not give, a satisfactory explanation as to how lie came hv an article a jurv might he entitled to infer either that lie stole it, or received it (lislioncstlv. Tlie jury retired at 12.J2 p.m.. After a retirement of exact'v five hours iliev returned with a verdict of guilty mi the fi’-st charge and not guilty on the second.

The jury had earlier returned to ask for permission to peruse a receipt olitn ined l>v acensed for a cycle rim he bad purelrased, and also a copy of lii s statement to the poliee. Accused was remanded until to-mor-row morning: for sentence.