TWENTY SHEEP KILLED

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 57, Issue 116, 26 February 1937, Page 4

TWENTY SHEEP KILLED

INTOXICATED MAORI DRIVER. TWENTY-ONE DAYS IN PRISON. .Per Press Association.' HAMILTON, February 25. A story of a lorry ploughing through 1000 sheep, killing 2(4 and injuring many, was told in the Magistrate’s Court, when a Maori, Wiremu Pairama was charged before Mr S. L. Paterson, S.M., with being intoxicated in charge of the vehicle and with negligent drivin°*. It was one of the most serious cases of the kind before the Court,” said Senior-Sergeant G. H. Lambert. An eye-witness stated that the lorry came around a bend at 35 miles an hour and did not slacken, but ploughed through the flock, piling sheep over the front of the vehicle and then careering into a ditch, where the driver calmly ate his lunch. There was a previous conviction for being intoxicated in charge of a vehicle.

He had been given .unjustifiable leniency last time, and he had committed the very serious offence again. There was nothing for him hut a term of imprisonment, said the magistrate, in convicting and sentencing him to 21 days’ imprisonment with hard labour, and cancelling his license for five years on the first charge. On the second he was convicted and discharged.