ACCIDENT TO CHILD

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 59, 11 March 1937, Page 15

ACCIDENT TO CHILD

CHARGE DISMISSED

An accident ori,the main road out-, side a service station at Mahina Bay j on February 15, when a small girl suf-: fered.a broken leg, had its sequel in the : Petone Court yesterday, when Doris Hazel McKenzie, a ; school teacher, appeared on a charge^Qf driving a motorcar without due car.c and attention. Senor-Sergeant H. C. D. Wade conducted the case for the Police and Mr. W. P. Rollings entered a plea of not guilty for the defence. A .service-station attendant; H.. Hancox, said that about 4.15 p.m.. on February 15 he was attending to a car opposite the service station when he heard a child scream, and, looking up, he.saw his employer's daughter, Margaret , Graf, aged 5, fall under the wheel of a motor-car. There were tyre marks on her leg, which was broken. When he saw the car it was on its wrong side of the. road. It drew over to its correct side and pulled up about 100 yards down the road. He had not been watching the child prior to the accident. Frederick Graf said he did not see the child knocked down. She was playing on the beach and he called her over. She had crossed the road. The car came round the corner on its correct side and then went over on to the wrong side of the road. ' The speed would be about 35 miles per hour. In reply to Mr. Rollings,,'witness denied that he told Constable Squire that the car's speed -was about 60 miles per hour. Spencer Wilcox, a school teacher, said he was talking to his son across the road opposite the service station. He saw the girl cross the road and speak to her father. He. next saw her under the car, .which was on its wrong side of the road.' ,» . Constable Squire read a statement in which Miss McKenzie said her speed was from 20 to 25 miles per hour. She was. driving towards Wellington. She saw a little girl standing on the seaward side of the road and just as the car came almost opposite her the girl ran across the road. She swerved to the right and thought she had missed the girl, but looking back she- saw her lying on the road. Witness said that Graf told him that i the car's speed was about 50 miles per j hour. • •

The defendant, in evidence, and two passengers in the car, Mrs. Violet McKenzie and Miss A. S. Barkley, stated that the girl ran. into the car, and it was only the defendant's action :in swerving to the right that probably saved her life.

In dismissing the charge, the:; Magistrate (Mr.-H. P. Lawry, S.M.), said that the child had suddenly dashed across the road. / .