Two guilty of huge milk theft

Two men were found guilty in the Manukau District Court yesterday of the theft of about $600,000 worth of milk powder last year.

Joseph William Murray snr, 46, and his nephew Joseph William Murray jnr, 27, both truck drivers, denied three joint charges of theft at the start of their six-day jury trial last week.

The jury was out for five hours before returning its verdicts.

The court heard that last June a stocktake at the freight warehouse of Linfox Logistics in Manukau revealed that about 120 pallets of milk powder belonging to the former New Zealand Dairy Board were missing.

The Crown alleged that about 10.20pm on June 2 last year a rented truck entered the Linfox Logistics yard. Twenty pallets of milk powder worth about $5000 each had been set aside for collection but on the day they were due to be collected, June 5, they were missing.

A number plate previously taken from South Auckland Nissan was on the truck that entered the Linfox Logistics yard.

The number plate was later found at Joseph Murray snr's farm in the Far North.

Crown prosecutor Bruce Northwood said the two other charges related to April 1 and April 15, when similar offences occurred. They followed the pattern of the June 2 offence.

In his summing up of the case yesterday, Judge David Harvey told the jury it should not speculate on whether other people were involved.

There was no visual identification of any of the truck drivers.

He said the defence conceded that the milk powder had disappeared but the defence case was that there was insufficient evidence to conclude that the Murrays were guilty.

During the trial, a third man, who had been charged with the Murrays, Kevin John Barnard, 39, an arms dealer of Devonport, was discharged.

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