SUPREME COURT Guilty Of Putting Explosives Beside House

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30469, 17 June 1964, Page 5

SUPREME COURT Guilty Of Putting Explosives Beside House

A jury in the Supreme Court yesterday found Albert Bernard Duke, aged 21, a quarry worker, guilty of reckless disregard for the safety of others when on February 17 he placed seven sticks of gelignite, detonators, and fuse beside a house at 9 Convoy street. Mr Justice Wilson remanded Duke in custody for sentence on Friday. Mr C. M. Roper appeared for the Crown, and Mt R. C. Blunt for Duke.

Duke pleaded not guilty to this charge and to an alternative charge that on the same date, with intent to intimidate by the use of explosives, he alarmed the occupants of 9 Convoy street by detonating the explosives. Walter Wereta, a commercial fisherman, said that on February 17 he was staying at 9 Convoy street. Duke, whom he had met for the first time the previous day, arrived at 9 Convoy street about 6.30 p.m. on February 17. Between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. he and Duke had a scuffle for five minutes. Duke stayed on and drank more beer after the fight. Cross-examined, Wereta said that Duke told him he went to school with Wereta’s sister about eight years before. The fight started after he said jokingly that it was Duke who had got his sister into trouble.

Hori Tipene Tauwhare, a shearer, said that he met Duke during the afternoon 'in a hotel and invited him to the Convoy street house. After the fight with Wereta Duke got into a fight with the witness and was knocked out. Duke later refused another drink and left to go home. Found Outside

About 30 minutes later, the witness said, he found Duke standing on the footpath. When he was asked what he was doing, Duke said something about bringing a bicycle back. Duke poked what' the witness thought was a knife at him, but this broke in half during a fight which followed. During the fight Duke fell against him, and he felt that Duke had something up his jersey. .

The occupier of the house then told Duke to go home. Wairua Mclntyre, a married woman and sister of Mrs Tauwhare, said she was in

bed during the earlier fights in the house. However, when the fight broke out on the footpath she went outside. She heard Duke say, “Look at these. These will blow you up.” Duke was holding a cylindrical object, covered in paper and about nine inches long. She told Duke to put it away and go home. Everybody then went inside, and Duke seemed to have gone home. About 15 minutes later she was lying in bed when she saw smoke drifting past the bedroom window.

Allan James Mclntyre, a commercial fisherman, said that when his wife said that smoke was drifting past the window he jumped out of bed and ran through the back door. There was then a loud bang from the front of the house. Detective’s Evidence

Detective-Sergeant Arthur Ernest- Yaxley said that the occupants of the house showed him a heap of seven and a half sticks of gelignite, a length of burnt fuse, six unexploded detonators and an exploded detonator lying about 18 Inches from the wall of the Mclntyres’ bedroom. About 1 a.m. he interviewed the accused, who grinned but

said nothing when the witness said that he seemed to have been beaten up. The accused had a blackened left eye and . numerous facial abrasions.

On two occasions, the witness said, the accused denied placing the gelignite near the house and also denied that earlier that evening he had sticks of gelignite up his jersey. Duke said that he had no gelignite in his home but had some on his truck parked in the street. Near the truck was found half a stick of gelignite, the tears on the wrapper of which perfectly, matched the tears on the half stick found at Convoy street. In the truck were found a box of detonators; a roll of- slow-burning fuse, quarter of sugar sack of gelignite sticks, and a roll of white- cordex explosive. The accused declined to answer any more questions after saying that he was a quarry worker. The slow-burning fuse, the witness said, was similar to that found at Convoy street, as were the gelignite and the detonators.