“WAS ONLY HELPING”

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 988, 3 June 1930, Page 16

“WAS ONLY HELPING”

REMOVAL OF SHIP’S STORES CONVICTED OF THEFT A plea that he wa.s only helping a member of the ship’s crew and that he did not know the goods were stolen was advanced by Peter Moran, charged at the Police Court this morning with the theft of stores from the Canadian Conqueror. Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., declined to believe Moran’s story and he was fined £2. Moran, alias Daniel Minihan, alias Morgan, a labourer and fireman, aged 48, was charged with stealing a tin of jam valued at 7s 6d and two tins of pickles valued at ss, the property of the Canadian National Steamship Co. He pleaded not guilty. Constable Campbell said he had been called to the King’s Wharf gates about 8 p.m. yesterday. There he had seen accused with the goods. A member of the crew of the Canadian Conqueror was with him. Moran had first said he was given the goods by the captain, but later explained he was merely helping the other man ashore with them. “We did not arrest the other man as the ship was sailing,” said the constable. Moran said he had been instructed by the chief engineer to stand by the vessel as he might be required at the last moment. While he was in the forecastle, a fireman, rather under the influence of liquor, had come on board and asked for assistance to carry the stores to a poor woman who had a large number of children. “I helped him with them, but I did not steal them,” Moran asserted. Sub-Inspector Shanahan said Moran had a list and he was fined £2, in default seven days’ imprisonment.