Life’S Shallowness

‘It’s everyone’s dream to find a bag of cash’

0 Comments | Grimsby Telegraph, Jul 26, 2010 | by Peter Craigpeter

THE Pounds 40,000 Cleethorpes dad Craig Whittle found in a plastic bag was not legal tender, a court heard.

The 36-year-old, of Brereton Avenue, had been hoping to sell it to a collector, which is what he will do with the seized Pounds 8,000 if he gets it back later this month.

Grimsby Crown Court heard Mr Whittle, who was cleared of theft by finding and converting criminal proceeds, found the cash behind Ramsden’s.

Craig Lowe, prosecuting, said the money belonged to someone unknown and Whittle should have reported the finding, made in the week before Christmas, to police.

Mr Whittle carried the cash to a friend’s house, named in court as Terry Woods. They split the haul and agreed to hide it.

On Sunday, January 17, patrolling police officers PCs Simon Duffield and Sean Johnston noticed Mr Whittle walking along Stanley Street, Grimsby, at 4.25pm. He ran off towards Tunnard Street, was trailed and later stopped.

They searched his pockets and found more than Pounds 500 in old bank notes in his pocket and the key to a Vauxhall Vectra, in which they found a red holdall containing Pounds 8,391 in old money.

Detective Constable Hayley Broddle said Mr Whittle told her in interview he found the cash in a bin liner next to a skip at the rear of Ramsden’s at about 10pm, but could not recall the exact date.

In interview, he told how he realised it was old money because the notes did not have a silver print. He said he wanted to find a collector, and told police he gave a lot of it away.

He admitted he swapped Pounds 2,000 with a Polish man in Skegness, for Pounds 500 in legal tender to buy a car for his mother, and claimed he had only used about Pounds 800 of the haul.

When the officer suggested to him it was theft by finding, he agreed.

Giving evidence, Whittle told how he was shocked by the discovery. Mr Whittle said: “It’s everyone’s dream that you find that amount of money. It was unreal.”

Explaining his decision to hide the money, he said: “In this town when you have got that kind of money, you get robbed
sell house cash