Hearing of Tyre Charges Adjourned E VIDENCE on charges of stealing
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and receiving tyres was given at Huddersfield Police Court, last week, when hearing was continued of the ease in which goods, stated to be worth over £27,000, are alleged to have been obtained mostly by men with a van who pretended that they were seeking "return loads" for a London transport concern.
One set of charges related to 155 Goodyear tyres, with tubes and fiaps,valued at £1,216. Two drivers, Kenneth William Shepherd, aged 22, of Cambridge Road, Enfield, Middlesex, and Albert Slater, aged 33, of Coombe Road, Croydon, were accused of stealing these goods; and two company directors, Harry Goodman, aged 50, of Derby Road, Nottingham, and Montague Keith Napier, aged 41, of Middleton Boulevard, Nottingham, were charged with receiving them.
In another instance, Shepherd and Napier were charged with receiving 117 Henley tyres, valued it £1,407, which tha prosecution said had disappeared outside a transport cafe.
With reference to the alleged theft of Goodyear tyres, evidence was given that a lorry driver, whom witnesses could not identify in court, called at the offices of C. and L. Transport, Ltd., Wolverhampton, represented himself to be from a London concern of hauliers, and asked for a return load. He was given a consignment note for Goodyear tyres to be delivered at the works of Vauxhall Motors, Ltd., Luton, and he collected the tyres from the Goodyear factory at Wolverhampton, but they were never delivered at the Vauxhall company's works.
Clifford Hinton Smith, of 278, St. Albans Road, Bulwell, Nottingham, A28 manager for Napier, Sons and Miller, Ltd., Nottingham, of which concern Montague Keith Napier is a member, gave evidence that he received £1,793 on Napier's behalf from a Mr. Keetch in respect of transactions on Napier's instructions, concerning Goodyear and Henley tyres.
Cross-examined, Smith agreed that Napier had told him to offer the tyres in the trade, and to get the best offer. Both Napier and himself had offered the tyres to a number of firms before Mr. keetch eventually bought them. Napier never suggested the tyre transactions stiould be kept secret, nor did he request witness to alter the serial numbers on the tyres. Keetch was a man of the highest integrity.
The hearing was adjourned until Juty 20, the four accused being given continued bail in sureties of over £4,000.