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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Stephan Butler at the Uckfield Community Learning Centre, on behalf of Dan Bentham and has been added to the site with his permission. Dan fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

During the war I was stationed in Algeria in North Africa. As a qualified solicitor, I was called upon to defend members of the army who had been accused of committing criminal offences.

I remember one such occasion: I received a telephone call informing me that I was required to defend two dispatch riders who had been accused of stealing a sheep. I arranged to interview the two soldiers separately.

The first despatch rider told me that they were leading a convoy when they came across a sheep wandering on the road. They thought that the sheep would be in danger if they left it where it was. The road had been carved into the hillside, and was very narrow and winding. So they decided to take the sheep with them, hoping they would find the farmer.

The following day, I arranged to meet the second rider. He independently told me the exact same story and identified the same location on the road where the accident occurred.

I was reasonably confident with our defence, as the two riders had corroborated each others story. I knew that I could call my driver as witness to this effect.

I was told that the defendants were being charged under a particular section of the Larceny Act. As I could not remember specifically what the particular section was about, I asked for advice from a court official. He told me that the section dealt specifically with sheep stealing, and that the penalties were much tougher. The maximum sentence was 21 years in prison. When I told the he despatch riders they were very alarmed to find out that they could be imprisoned for this long.

In court the prosecuting officer called the grandmother of the owner of the sheep. She claimed that she had seen the riders steal the sheep from their flock.

The court proceedings took some time, as the grandmother was Arabic and her statement had to be translated first into French and then into English.

The court retired to consider the verdict. When they returned the verdict was announced, the court said that the case was ‘proven’.

We then all waited with baited-breath to find out what the sentence would be, bearing in mind the maximum sentence was pretty stiff. The judge said that they were to be confined to barracks for only 21 days! The time they had already been in custody — so they were in effect free to go.

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