A lot more to the background... As in most legal cases it is about what is not said and or where they know the facts and your caught telling porkies or inconsistent.
1: Not all were charged with the same breaches - Pics of 4 but one is blurred out... released all three men on bail
2: 1 worked in the Shire
3: They had detectors and had been
on a trip that produced nothing ? No mention of where or for how long said trip was.
4: A BBQ and disused mining pit nearby = How many other locals and or Grey Nomads have stopped and a poke..
5: Interesting use of words... "
explore the bottom of
a disused mining pit nearby, where
one of them stumbled over the
large chunk of gold.
There is a lot more behind all that...
6: "the men
then used their metal detectors to recover more than a kilogram of gold " Does not gel with point 5 ?
7: "largest specimen
a rare gold leaf-type nugget was smashed to pieces" Something you would do to attempt to hide the exact type and thus actual location from whence it may have come...
8: "the company was monitoring the case, but "it would not be appropriate to make any further comment as the matter is still before the courts". " That is very interesting....
My gut says they found it elsewhere
And they came up with the BBQ and disused Mine in an attempt to cover the real story - But that is just my conjecture from a Newspaper post
You can bet the Company involved has more info and would be in a better position to say where the GOLD was from (If they can get at some to test it )... Some one will know where it was found and at some stage; visit said area again and who knows what the outcome might be....
They though they saw a chance to pocket some Gold from a company and that it would not be missed - Trespass and Stealing with knowledge that they were in breach or one or more laws etc... Disused Mine Shaft is an option that other owners have used previously in these sorts of cases........
