Magistrates Court Man For Trial On Charge Of... (Press, 23 May 1963)

Maurice Albert Davis, a 29-year-old motor mechanic, has been committed for trial in the Supreme Court in Christchurch on a charge of stealing a Ford Zephyr car, valued at £850, in Timaru on 26 April 1962. The hearing took place in the Magistrate’s Court on 22 May 1963, where Davis pleaded not guilty and opted for a jury trial. He was represented by Mr D. H. Stringer, while Senior Sergeant G. M. Cleary acted as the prosecutor. The police opposed bail, and Davis was remanded in custody. The owner of the vehicle, John Edwin Stevenson, testified that his car was taken from Banks Street in Timaru on the night of the alleged theft and that he did not see it again until April 11, 1963, at the Christchurch Central Police Station. The car had been repainted and its number plates altered. Detective-Constable R. A. Meikle recounted investigating the vehicle at Commercial Motors, where Davis claimed the cars on site were his customers’, but later conceded that the Zephyr was his. Stevenson later identified waterproof clothing found at the garage as his property. Detective Sergeant E. T. Mitten disclosed that he had been unable to locate a person named James Robert Hardy, connected to the case. Davis purportedly claimed he had sold the car but later admitted it was in a garage he rented and was to be repaired and repainted. He ultimately indicated that, after the owner could not pay the bill, he decided to use the vehicle himself and placed his own number plates on it. In separate matters in the court, Paul Fergus Kaye, a 17-year-old workman, was committed for trial on a charge of sodomy, while 23-year-old Robert Mervyn Hills faced charges of attempted sodomy and aiding and abetting sodomy, both occurring between late April and early May 1963. Both men pleaded not guilty and were granted bail. Raymond Henry Brett, 26, faced charges for deserting the S.S. Runic in Wellington in August 1955 and pleaded guilty; he was convicted and ordered to be detained but released on bail pending deportation. His counsel stated that Brett had been living in New Zealand for nearly nine years and had settled in Christchurch with his family, and an application to permit him to remain would follow. Malcolm Robert Kinnaird, 38, was remanded on bail following a not guilty plea to driving while disqualified, while Anthony James Patrick Pigott, 35, was remanded under the Mental Health Act due to being idle and disorderly. Thomas Gardiner Campbell, 46, was also remanded on bail for fraudulently obtaining a budgerigar and money. The court also dealt with miscellaneous offences, including unlicensed radios and unregistered dogs, resulting in various fines imposed on several individuals for those violations.

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