In his opening address, Crown prosecutor Michael Fox alleged Gregory Mark Simmons, acting either alone or with others, broke into six containers and four portable offices of a company installing ventilation shafts for the Dendrobium coalmine between 6.30pm on January 7, 2008 and 7am the next day.

The construction site was accessed by an 11km dirt road which began at the Cordeaux Dam picnic area.

A second 5km emergency fire trail, which was usually locked, allowed access to the site by 4WD.

Mr Fox said the Coke can had been swabbed for human DNA by a crime scene police officer two days after the burglary, which a laboratory analysis then led to a match with Simmons' profile.

Simmons faces nine charges of break, enter and steal and one charge of theft.

Project manager Ben Hetherington told the court he arrived at the site about 7.30am on January 8, and after hearing of the theft, carried out an inspection.

During the tour, a Coke can was found on top of an electrical box next to a container and a chair under a hole where an air-conditioning unit had once been installed.

Mr Hetherington said the can and chair had not been there the previous evening. His immediate thought was the Coke can had come from the crib room fridge and the chair was used to gain access to the container.

He originally said police removed the can from the electrical box and placed it in an office, but yesterday agreed under cross-examination by defence solicitor Caleb Franklin that it must have been moved by a company employee.

Mr Hetherington said it would have taken a small truck to move all the goods from the site and that a compressor and a 300-litre fridge would have been difficult for one person to load onto a truck.

A check of company records showed Simmons had never been employed by the company nor was there any record of him visiting the construction site.