MISSING MOTOR PARTS

Taranaki Daily News, 22 November 1926, Page 11

MISSING MOTOR PARTS

TE PUKE GARAGE ENTERED CHARGE AGAINST OPI’NAKE MEN. BOTH COMMITTED FOR TRIAL. Having already figured once as principals in recent sensational charges of extensive burglaries of Taranaki country stores, Ambrose and Albert Fowler again appeared in court on Saturday when, at New Plymouth, they pleaded not guilty to the theft of. motor accessories from Te Puke, Bay of Plenty, valued at £l9 6s. They were committed for trial at the sessions of the Supreme Court to commence in New Plymouth to-morrow. The offence is said to have occurred on or about July 31 and it is alleged that a motor-ear battery, two tyres, a spotlight and a dashboard clock were taken by accused from a garage belonging to Bostock and Vereoe. Messrs S. G. Smith and J. R. Hill, J.P.’s, were on the bench and they admitted the Fowlers to bail on terms the same as those granted on their previous committal. Phillip Walter Vereoe, of Te Puke, said that on Wednesday, August 4, he discovered that a battery bad disappeared from the battery room in the firms’ garage. It had been on charge for a customer. He made a further search in the garage and found the tyres, spotlight and clock were missing. The articles were similar to those produced in court. Their value would be about £2O, ana that of the dashboard clock, which was not produced, £2 7s 6d. All the doors nad ' been closed and locked with the exception of an inner door, which was without a lock owing to structural alterations then in progress. The probable means of entrance was through an unfastened window, though the baek door signs of having been forced. The articles mentioned were in the garage on July 30, as far as he knew, and no one had authority to remove them. FOWLERS’ PREMISES SEARCHED: How the accused came to be suspected of the 4fieft was related by Detective Meiklejohn. In order to carry out a search warrant concerning another matter he visited the Fowlers’ premises on October 5, accompanied by Constables Seannell, Brenchley and Clouston. There he saw the articles alleged to have been stolen. The tyres were in a room occupied by Albert Graham, an employee of Albert Fowler and in the same room was a sugar-bag containing a battery. The spotlight was on a shelf in the garage and the dashboard elock in a hut occupied by the Fowlers. Ambrose Fowler said he had paid £4 10s each for the tyres while on a holiday in Hamilton. He could not remember the name of—the shop from which he had purchased them, and he did not have a receipt. The spotlight had been given him, he said, by his brother Albert, who had not long before bought a motorcycle; the light had been included in the purchase. The battery belonged to Albert, the detective was told, this brother having owned a car when at Te Puke. INTERVIEWS WITH ACCUSED. As a result of receiving advice concerning the theft of articles similar to those produced the detective had interviewed Ambrose Fowler and secured a signed statement from him. In this he admitted, according to the witness, that he and his wife and family and his brother were staying with a brother-in-law at Te Puke in July. One night after attending the pictures Albert and he were looking for some benzine for the car when, they found the back door of Bostock and Vereoe’s garage open. Each took a tyre and Albert brought a battery out. The statement read admitted that all the articles mentioned in the charge were taken and that the tyres found by the police in Graham’s room were those from Te Puke. Constable Seannell said that on October 22 he read to Albert Fowler the statement made by Ambrose. Fowler made a statement corroborating in the main that of his brother. Constable T. Brenchley confirmed the evidence concerning the execution of the search warrant on "October 5. He was present also when Ambrose Fowler was interviewed at Opunake on October 22. Later that day he recovered the spotlight and battery produced from the Fowlers’ premises. Ambrose said the battery stolen from Te Puke had been used in the ear, but that since the search on October 5 it had been taken out of his ear and his own battery replaced. The battery found- by the police in the sugar-bag was Fowler’s own. The clock was not in the. shed on Constable Brenchley’s second visit, but Ambrose Fowler said it would be handed over when found. It had not been produced since then; however.