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The trial of several stock thieves from Green Ponds in 1842. Heard before the Supreme Court on Monday 18th July 1842:
Thomas Crockson, Charles Stacey, and James Ducks, were indicted for stealing, on the 20th June, nineteen fat sheep, of the value of £9, the property of Mr. Joseph Johnson, of Green Ponds. The prisoners were defended by Mr. Macdowell.
The particulars of this case, which occupied a considerable time, are as follow:-
The prosecutor had a flock of ninety-five fat sheep, kept in a paddock, under the care of his shepherd, Wm. Evans, who, on the 21st June, missed nineteen, having found them safe the day previous. The prisoner, Crockson, on the 20th, had purchased forty similar sheep of Mr. Edmund Johnson, nephew of the prosecutor, and ? [text illegible] ? between forty and fifty towards Mr. Jones's yards, at the Royal Oak, at Green Ponds: the prosecutor's sheep were marked in a very particular manner, having, amongst other marks, a spot of blue paint on the rump, which mark was not on the sheep of his nephew, but confined to the flock of ninety-five sheep.
District Constable Flexmore, in consequence of information which he had received, went to Mr. Jones, of the Royal Oak, who has a saleyard, and afterward apprehended Crockson, who was a baker and butcher, and Ducks; he afterwards went with Mr. Philip Johnson, another nephew of Mr. Joseph Johnson, and found in the paddock where the sheep were kept that two logs had been removed, and observed marks as if a number of sheep had been driven over the fence: he also saw the print of a wooden leg, which corresponded with that worn by the prisoner Ducks.
A person named Tunks, who was in the habit of lending Crockson his barn for a slaughter-house, deposed that on the 20th June, Ducks and Stacey slaughtered some sheep there, the skins of which were placed upon a dray belonging to Rainbow, the carrier, who stated that he had brought the skins which he purchased of Crockson, to Mr. Regan, the tanner, to whom he sold them. Finding the skins had been thus removed, Mr. Flexmore immediately communicated with the Police in Hobart Town, when the Chief Constable directed Constable Goldsmith, an active member of the force, to go to Regan's with Rainbow, where 18 skins were delivered to him by Mr. Regan, as those which Rainbow had sold him. These were subsequently taken by Goldsmith to Green Ponds, and were sworn to in Court by several witnesses as being the same which belonged to Mr. Johnson's sheep.
Mr. Macdowell, for the prisoners, commented upon the absence of Mr. Regan, as a witness, to prove that the skins sworn to were the identical ones purchased of Rainbow, and afterwards delivered up to Goldsmith. He contended, that in the absence of that testimony, it would not be safe to convict the prisoners. The learned counsel also remarked upon the public manner in which the prisoners drove the sheep, in broad day, to Mr. Jones's, which would be the first place where enquiries were likely to be made. Even if the Jury believed that the prisoners had so driven sheep belonging to Mr. Johnson, there was nothing to show that they had feloniously taken them, but every probability that they had joined the other sheep as they were being driven by the paddock.
The Attorney-General briefly replied, and observed that if the jury were to attend to probabilities, it would have been better for the prisoners to have shewn in what manner they became possessed of the missing sheep.
His Honor, after some remarks upon the case generally, minutely recapitulated the evidence of each witness, when the jury, having been absent ten minutes, returned a verdict of Guilty against all the prisoners. They were then remanded.1
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1 Colonial Times, 19 July 1842, p.3, c.3.
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