Stolen Furs

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 58, 31 May 1927, Page 13

Stolen Furs

CHARGE OF RECEIVING MCLEAN FOR TRIAL A SEQUEL to last week’s big burglary “clean-up” by the Auckland detectives was heard in the Police Court yesterday, when Archibald McLean was charged with “receiving” fur coats, chokers, Kolinsky capes and fox skins, stolen from the Arctic Fur Company by Jack Johnston and Frank Bailer, who have been already committed to the Supreme Court for sentence. McLean, who was also charged with “attempting to obstruct, pervert or defeat the cause of justice,” pleaded not guilty and • was committed to the Supreme Court for trial. Evidence regarding the discovery of the burglary was given by James Manuel, the proprietor of the Arctic Fur Company, who identified £205 10s worth of the stolen property which had been recovered. Chief Detective Cummings told the court that he had said to McLean: “Bailer told me he arranged with you, if he got ‘pinched,’ that you were to get the sack of furs out of the railway station luggage room, and keep them until he saw you later.” McLean denied this at the time, but later at the Detective Office, Mr. Cummings continued, Bailer said to the accused: “We are pinched, Mac; you had better give the D.’s the bag of furs.” The accused said: “I was a fool not to tell you where the fur coats were when you first interviewed me. I will now tell you where they are.” The bag of furs was subsequently found in the washhouse of a house in Dominion Road. Joseph Arthur Martin, a carrier, toid the court that he had taken the furs, at McLean’s request, from the railway to Dominion Road. “He told me it was a sack of bedding,” said this witness. In his statement to the police McLean admitted that Bailer had taken him to the railway luggage office and given him a ticket which he presented four or five days later. “Bailer told me that it was for a bag with furs in it,” McLean said, “and that if I’could ‘drop them’ I could make a few pounds over them.”