WERE WATCHED BY NEIGHBOURS

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19231, 19 November 1930, Page 4

WERE WATCHED BY NEIGHBOURS

MEN PLEAD GUILTY TO SHEEP STEALING CHARGE Per Press Association. HAMILTON, November IS. Francis Joseph Walmsley, twentythree years of age, and Herbert Christian Olsen, thirty-four years, charged on six counts with sheep stealing at Te Mata, in the hills between Raglan and Kawhia, appeared in the Supreme Court at Hamilton to-day. The Crown alleged a system bordeiing on banditry, where the two accused were said to have gone out by night amongst the flocks of a neighbour and to have carried and driven his sheep away. Suspicion having fallen on the! two men, they were watched night after night by a party of neighbours who: sometimes hid in a crevice along the • seacoast known as Lightning Cave,' where they stated they observed the whole procedure. Later the police dis- j covered heads of sheep removed from the bodies, with the ears missing, sheep skins minus the ears, sheep with altered ear marks, blood and ear clippings in the bush, and entrails of animals hidden in a swamp. It was also alleged that one of the men declared after arrest that he would give hundreds to keep the matter out of Court. Walmsley was charged with stealing fifty sheep, Olsen with stealing one sheep, and both accused in company with stealing four sheep. After considerable evidence had been heard, both accused altered their plea of not guilty to guilty on all but one charge. Sentence was deferred.