Primarily, item 59, a 24" gold curb link necklett belonging to one of the 10 complainants, was already in the possession of Douglas McHale and Leslie Hawkes on the morning of Sunday the 25th January 1987, 7 hours or more before the arrival of the man at their bungalow at just after 6.30pm. McHale and Hawkes had taken this 24" gold curb link necklett to try and sell it to acquaintances of Thiers in Selby earlier in the day, without success. According to Hawkes, this item (59) belonged to her partner, Douglas Mchale, who had purchased it two years earlier. upon arriving hone later that evening, item 59 had not been replaced into the Woolworth plastic carrier bag in their possession, but had been placed on the kitchen worktop nr the microwave...
Another item, which had been stolen during one of the break ins, item 69, which had been secreted behind central heating pipes in a hallway cupboard, belonged to a Mr Ibbotson. Other property stolen during the course of that same break in, were found amongst the contents of the Woolworth carrier bag from under a mattress in the bedroom...
Therefore, property which had been stolen less than 48 hours beforehand, was in McHale's and Hawked possession, long enough for them to separate some of the stolen property from the other, and (a) conceal it behind heating pipes in one of their cupboards, and (b) take at least one other item with them to Selby that morning to try and sell it to someone who they refused to identify to the police. There is every reason to believe that they took other items stolen during the other 8 break ins with them that morning with a view to them selling it all to the unnamed buyer who lived in the Selby area. For all we know, McHale and Hawkes could have taken the Woolworth carrier bag full of the proceeds from all 10 of these break ins when they went out intent on realizing themselves some cash through the sale of the stolen property in their possession (long before the man arrived on the scene later that evening). If this is what did happen, how can the man in question, whoever he was, be convicted of the 10 burglaries on the basis that later on that evening (Sunday, 25th January 1987) he had been in possession of the stolen property, less than 48 hours after it had been stolen, by a reliance upon the 'doctrine of recent possession'?
Firstly, it had not been proved to a satisfactory standard, that the property which the man was allegedly seen handling through a tiny gap in a venetion blind, was indeed the very same property later recovered from under the mattress in one of the rear bedrooms. Secondly, the bag seen by the officer who was peering through the gap in the venetion blind at the lounge window, had, he said, been a cloth bank bag, not a Woolworth carrier bag. Thirdly, after the recovery of the Woolworth carrier bag in another part of the house which contained items of stolen property from all 10 break ins, at no stage did the officer who had allegedly been peering through the gap in the venetion blind ever view the contents of the Woolworth carrier bag with a view of saying that it was the same jewellery he had seen being tipped out onto the lounge carpet from the cloth bank bag?