A bicycle salesman whose stack of two-wheelers in the back garden was so big it could be seen on satellite images has been convicted of handling stolen goods.
Police raided Martin Shaba’s home in Giles Road, Littlemore, in March last year and found the huge pile of bicycles.
The stack was so large that entire bicycles could be seen over the top of the fence separating 55-year-old Shaba’s garden from his next door neighbours.
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He denied charges of handling stolen goods, after prosecutors charged him with having five bicycles they said he knew or suspected had been stolen.
After a trial at Oxford Magistrates’ Court on Monday (June 12), he was convicted of all the allegations against him.
Chairman of the magistrates' court bench Alan Dyer said: “Having listened carefully to both the defence case and the prosecution case, we find that you did act dishonestly in that you handled stolen goods either knowing them to be stolen or believing them to be stolen.”
The ‘main’ reason for finding him guilty, the justice of the peace continued, was because Shaba’s evidence from the witness box on Monday was ‘substantially inconsistent and vague’.
He went on to detail point by point the areas of the defendant’s evidence where he appeared to contradict himself.
Shaba told the magistrates the bikes found in a van had ‘just been delivered from Reading’ then, later, said they were in the van ready for export, Mr Dyer said.
“You claimed not to know much about bikes; either about fixing them or their value,” he said. The same defendant also told JPs he ‘taught people how to repair them’, had traded in bicycles for 14 years and was considering opening a shop of his own.
The defendant said bicycles destined for sale in Africa were ‘checked over and repaired to a high standard’ then later suggested he had ‘not checked over’ the bikes, it was said.
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Mr Dyer summarised: “We found your evidence inconsistent and, therefore, incredible.”
Shaba, of Giles Road, Oxford, was granted unconditional bail to return to Oxford Magistrates’ Court for sentencing on July 11.
The magistrates ordered a pre-sentence report from the probation service, asking the officer to consider ‘all options’.
The punishment in the magistrates’ court for the offence of handling stolen goods ranges from a discharge and a fine to a community order with unpaid work or a prison sentence of up to six months.
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