Supreme Court Defence Case Before Jury In Theft Trial

Press, Volume C, Issue 29515, 17 May 1961, Page 10

Supreme Court Defence Case Before Jury In Theft Trial

The trial of Gerald Raymond Augustine Wall, aged 40, on a charge of the theft by failing to account, was adjourned in the Supreme Court yesterday after Mr D. H. Hicks had put the case for the defence. Mr Justice Macarthur, who will sum up this morning, took the 67 exhibits, mainly docket books and accounts, into his chambers when the Court rose.

Wall pleaded not guilty to a charge of theft of £335 0s sd, the property of Nu-Way Dry Cleaners, Ltd., by failing to account for that sum while working under a contract with the firm between March 20 and August 26. 1960. The Crown Prosecutor (Mr P. T. Mahon) successfully applied yesterday to have the indictment altered so that Wall is charged with the theft of £335 0s 5d instead of £4ll 19s Bd. Mr Mahon said the greater amount was a sum not accounted for between January 1 and August 26, 1960, whereas the indictment preferred against Wall concerned the period from March 20 to August 26. 1960.

Continuing his evidence yesterday, Alva Acheson Trotter, manager of Nu-Way Dry Cleaners, said the accused had admitted he was guilty of inefficiency and neglect but not guilty of theft. The accused, the witness said, told him that if he had taken the money it would have been in the bank, and he had only £2O in the bank. Asked about his car, the accused said it was given to him by his wife's father. I The accused had made part 'restitution, the witness said, by allou-ing his car and vans to be taken by the Nu-Way | Company at valuation. ; Cross-examined. Trotter ■agreed that the accused had i denied suppressing dockets. ! Thelma Nellie Bailey, mariried, said she worked in the i office of the Nu-Way Company at the time the accused iwas contracting for the firm's [“home valet service.” She used to obtain the docket 'books from the accused’s | four drivers on Saturdays, iremove the duplicate dockets, [check them against the drivers' day books, and take the I duplicate dockets to the firm’s [office. She did not handle [any of the money collected j by the drivers. Docket Numbers Cross-examined by Mr | Hicks, the witness said the ■ docket books at one stage gave a lot of trouble. "They were [ quite unreliable. The num[bers were not in sequence.” she said. The errors in the numbering of the dockets continued Ifoi most of the time she was helping the accused, the witness said. They were such ' that she did not have the time to go through them and ■pick out the errors. She had I informed both Trotter and the accused of these errors. “There could have been dockets with the same numbers and there were gaps in [the numbers. The gaps did [not always occur at the end [of one week and beginning of [ the next. Some of the dockets at the end of the books were defaced, and dockets at the beginning of the books came loose." The witness said that she had seen the duplicate dockets lying loose on the girl clerk's desk at the company’s office, sometimes when the girl was not at her desk. I Re-examined by Mr Mahon. [ the witness said she had been [a neighbour of the accused. She could not give any reason why 3500 dockets should be missing in 1959 and 1960 Richard Irvine Farrant. , managing director of the : North Canterbury Gazette I Company, Ltd., explained the , method used by his company ! in printing, collating, and j binding the docket books .for I the Nu-Way Company. The

numbering was done with a machine and the numbers were checked on printing, collating, and binding.

Cross-examined, the witness said it was almost impossible that there would be any gaps, and highly unlikely that the numbers would be out of order. Addresses Mr Hicks elected to call no evidence for the defence. In his final address to the jury. Mr Mahon said that the Crown evidence had shown that from January, 1959, to August. 1960. 3500 dockets had not been accounted for, 2500 in 1959 and about 1000 in 1960 up to August 26. “The defence to these facts rests broadly on two factors. It has been suggested to you that faulty numbering of the dockets resulted in some dockets not being in the books: and it has been suggested to you,, very tentatively, that inefficiency and muddiement by the company’s servants contributed to dockets being mislaid and missing,” said Mr Mahon. “But two facts remain abundantly clear. Nothing can get over the fact that 3500 of these dockets were missing and all were missing between the end of one week and the beginning of the next. .. . “All the suggestions that have been made of incorrect numbering of dockets by the printers, duplicated numbers, gaps in numbers, all fall to the ground because of the very large number of dockets missing and each docket missing at the week-ends Mr Mahon said that if the evidence of Mrs Bailey was to be believed then the drivers would have given evidence of errors in the docket books. But the drivers' evidence. in the main, was 'hat they had no complaints. Farrant had said he had no complaints about the printing of the docket books from the accused or Trotter. Mrs Bailey had been a neighbour of the accused and had left the employment of the Nu-Way Company in February last. The jury might well think she had been trying to help the accused, but her evidence was very vague, Mr Mahon submitted. Defence Case Mr Hicks said that the Crown had failed to prove conclusively that the money the accused was charged with stealing had been actually given to him by the drivers. If 'he accused had not had this money in his hands, he could not be guilty of stealing it. The drivers had not checked the dockets with their day books. Mrs Bailey had not always done so. but when she had she had found numerous errors in the numbering of the dockets. Mrs Bailey had been keeping the accused’s accounts from June. 1959, to June, 1960. She tore the duplicate dockets out of the docket books, tore the strips of five dockets into single ones, and took three separate piles for the three rounds into the company's office. “Miss Smith and Mr Trotter have both admitted 40 dockets were found between Miss Smith's desk and the wall,” Mr Hicks said. Counsel said that the only evidence that all the dockets disappeared between the end of the drivers' week and the beginning of the next was the weekly list compiled by Miss Smith. He suggested very strongly that Miss Smith had compiled these lists incorrectly. Counsel suggested that Miss Smith had taken the first number on a pile of dockets for a round and put 'he charge against it. She had then listed numbers consecutively down the page and entered each charge against the number. Nine of her lists showed gaps in number sequences. Mrs Bailey’s evidence was

that there were gaps in the numbers before the dockets entered the company's office. If Miss Smith just listed numbers consecutively from one to 100. but in reality there was a gap of 10 numbers, then the correct last number on her list should have been 110, counsel submitted. “Explanation” “This would explain all the missing dockets apparently being at the end of a week. I suggest that Miss Smith, a girl of 15 when she entered the company's office with no previous office training, has been left to go along on her own way without training in the muddlement and inefficiency of this company’s office,” counsel said. He submitted that two of Miss Smith's weekly lists had been shown 100 per cent, incorrect, not one charge on her weekly statements corresponding with the charge on the docket number on the triplicate dockets in the books. “If Miss Smith is proved to be 100 per cent, wrong on two weekly statements it is a reasonable inference that she is not 100 per cent, right in her other statements. If her statements are wrong, then Mr Trotter’s calculation of the value of the missing dockets is wrong, as he conceded in cross-examination, and if the statements are wrong there is no evidence that the gaps in the sequence numbers, on which the Crown relies for evidence, represent suppressed dockets. “The accused has denied and still denies deliberate suppression of dockets and the theft of the money. I submit there is real doubt if any dockets were ever suppressed,” Mr Hicks concluded.