A 23-YEAR-OLD Cinderford man has been cleared by a jury of stealing large amounts of electrical cable from his employers.

After a retirement of five hours 20 minutes the jury at Gloucester Crown Court acquitted Lee Davies of all eight theft charges against him.

He was granted a defendant's costs order by Judge Michael Longman and discharged.

However, Lee's father, David, 55, is due back before the court in the week of January 4 to be sentenced for eight offences which he has admitted to dishonestly handling drums of stolen electrical cable and selling it to a scrap dealer.

Father and son both live at Cedardean, Cinderford, and earlier the court was told that at the time of the alleged offences, Lee worked for Dean Electrical Wholesale, on the Forest Vale industrial estate.

Philip Warren, prosecuting, said cable stolen from the firm was given to Davies senior and he sold it as scrap to Simms Metals in Cinderford.

Lee denied throughout the case that he stole any cable at all and said that he was not to blame for whatever went missing from the firm. His dad David Davies admitted handling a total of 1,585kg of cable knowing it was stolen.

Dean Electrical managing director Dennis Bosley told the court part of Lee Davies' job was to transfer stock to sister company Sparkpak and to send items out to other firms.

"We noticed a lot of cable was going missing," he said. "The only people responsible for this work were my son and Lee Davies."

David Martin, defending, told the jury that although Mr Bosley believed £18,000 worth of property had gone missing the value of the stock Lee Davies was alleged to have taken was much less.

"Mr Davies actually told police how the cable could have been stolen when he was interviewed, by booking out 20 drums and sending only 10," he said.

"He did not have time to make it up and it had the ring of truth about it. He admitted that he took advantage of the chaotic stock control system in the company to take small amounts of goods."

Mr Martin told the jury the real reason for the stock disappearing was the firm's chaotic stocktaking.

After a four-day trial Lee was acquitted. and Judge Longman ordered a pre-sentence report to be prepared on his father, who is on bail pending sentence in the New Year.