[3] On the morning following the commission of the offence, the appellant was found driving a motor vehicle in which there were secreted bundles of money totalling in amount a sum suspiciously close to the amount stolen from the Club; and that suspicion was reinforced by a comparison of the denominations of notes making up, respectively, the amount stolen from the club, and the amount found subsequently in the possession of the appellant.
7 On the first proposition basic to the Crown case, the evidence was that the Club had in place at the relevant time a fairly sophisticated security system. In order to activate, or to de-activate, the security system, it was necessary to key into a digital key pad an authorised PIN number. A number of club employees had on issue an individualised PIN number. In some cases the allocated PIN number could both activate and de-activate the security system. In other cases, the allocated PIN number could activate, but could not de-activate, the security system. Whenever a PIN number was keyed into the digital key pad, whether for the purpose of activating, or for the purpose of de-activating, the security system, the system operated so as to make a continuous chronological record showing which particular PIN number had been used on the particular occasion; and showing, also, the date and time at which the particular PIN number had been so used.
8 A check carried out on the morning of 22 September 1997 revealed that at 11.47 p.m. on 21 September the PIN number of a Mr. Robert Mitchell had been used to de-activate the security system. That same check revealed that the same PIN number had been used to re-activate the security system at about 8 minutes past midnight on 22 September. The Crown case at trial was that the appellant was in possession, on 21 September, of Mr. Mitchell's PIN number. Mr. Mitchell gave evidence at the trial and to the effect that the appellant, while still employed as the manager of the Club, had asked him, Mr. Mitchell, for the detail of his PIN number. The appellant, who also gave evidence at trial, denied that he had ever obtained Mr. Mitchell's PIN number. It seems to me to follow necessarily from the verdict of the jury that the jury must have accepted Mr. Mitchell, and rejected the appellant, on this particular point. For myself, I cannot see why it was not open to the jury to come to that conclusion.
9 The possession of Mr. Mitchell's PIN number aside, it was not disputed at trial that the appellant, who had worked at the Club until early September 1997, had, as at 21/22 September 1997 such knowledge of the Club security arrangements as would have enabled him, if armed with a valid PIN number, to have effected entry to the Club premises; and to the safe within those premises; and to have stolen the large amount of cash then held in that safe.
10 The appellant's case at trial stopped short of a positive allegation that Mr. Mitchell had himself been the thief; but it is, in my opinion, plain from a reading of the trial transcript that the defence strategy at trial was to insinuate to the jury in every way short of a simple and positive accusation, that Mr. Mitchell was so suspect that there must be, on that account, a reasonable doubt left in the minds of the jury as to the appellant's guilt as charged in the indictment.
11 As to the second proposition fundamental to the Crown case, I have already touched upon the aspect of opportunity. Upon the aspect of motive, it was the Crown case that the appellant, as at 21 September, was in the course of purchasing a small business; that he needed a large sum of cash in order to complete that transaction; that he could not find, from his own unaided resources, an amount of cash sufficient for the purpose; and that he had, therefore, a demonstrable motive to steal the Club's cash.
12 The defence strategy at trial was to contradict the Crown argument by calling evidence from the appellant's mother, brother and sister-in-law, to the effect that the appellant's mother, a lady aged some 80 years, had in her possession at the relevant time a large amount of cash; and that she had in fact advanced to the appellant an amount of cash sufficient to cover his needs in connection with his then current purchase of a small business.
13 As to the third proposition fundamental to the Crown case, it was not disputed that the appellant had been arrested early in the morning of Monday, 22 September; and that he had then been found, as earlier noted, in possession of an amount of cash almost equal to the amount that had been stolen from the Club.
14 As earlier herein noted, the Crown pointed at trial to comparative break-downs of, on the one hand the total amount stolen from the Club; and, on the other hand, the amount found in the possession of the appellant at the time of his arrest. It is sufficient for present purposes to note the relevant summaries.