BURGLARY CHARGE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23488, 27 October 1939, Page 6

BURGLARY CHARGE

POST OFFICE CASE '

A CLERK ON TRIAL EVIDENCE ABOUT £5 NOTE A charge of breaking intciyithe R un . ciman Post Office on August"'26 a n j stealing from it £29 Is Sd in monev and a telephone directory, was. p r J ferred in the Supreme Court yeste'rda against Arthur Dominic Plunkett clerk, aged 40 (Mr. McCarthy)xiiere was a further charge of receiving a rnote knowing it. to have been stol e ~,' The case was heard by Mr. Justice Fair. < The Crown Prosecutor, Mr. V, Meredith, said that among the monev stolen from the Runeiman Post Office was a £5 note that had been positively identified. On the night of August 26 the post office was broken into and the safe blown open. Tim number of the ' only £5 note on. the premises w as known, and the police notified the hotels of this number. i Incident at, Hotel i On August 29 accused turned up a fc an hotel with.a £5 note, and was sent 1o the office to get it said' Mr. Meredith. When the girl at the office found it was the missing note accused left hurriedly without his change. When arrested accused' refi? Ss( ] to say anything about where he was on the night of August 26. Ho said he had received the £o noie from a pro; - hibited man who wanted him to buy a bottle of whisky, for him. The fact that accused bad the stolen £5 note in his possession would lead to the inference that he had broken into the post office, \\lr. Meredith said but the jury might think the evidence' of this was insufficient. Witnesses for Crown Evidence was given by the postmistress at Runeiman and by a woman resident of the district who- identified the number of a £5 note produced as the number of one she had deposited at the Runeiman Post Office just before the robbery. , • A barman-at the Newmarket Hotel Albert Sydney Dye, said 'that accused tendered him a £5 note which the office identified as the missing one Accused disappeared very quickly without the note or the whisky he had selected. , - r A clerk at the Newmarket Hotel said that accused gave her a £5 note to change, and she found it was the note of which the number had been given her to watch for. 'When she declined to return the note to- accjised he immediately left. Thei hearing of evidence will be continued to-day. - ■ V.,