OLD MAN'S DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 260, 2 November 1929, Page 7

OLD MAN'S DEATH.

• MOUNT ALBERT FATALITY.

MOTORIST ACQUITTED.

NEGLIGENCE NOT PROVED.

After a brief retirement, the jury which considered the case of Frederick Ernest Vogwill, a young dairyman, charged with negligently driving a motor car so as to cause the death of Henry Haskett, aged 73, returned with a verdict of not guilty. Prisoner was accordingly discharged. The accident happened on the Mount Albert Road, on the evening of July 20, and it was alleged that the negligence on the part of accused was that his lights and brakes were defective. There was a difference of opinion as to the speed at which Vogwill was travelling just prior to the accident, some witnesses estimating it at 30 miles an hour and others from S to 10 miles. Mr. V. N. Hubble prosecuted, and Mr. R. J. Coates represented accused. Detective McWhirter produced a statement in which accused said that when he was travelling along Mount Albert Road towards Allendale Road, he was driving at a speed which he estimated at 15 miles an hour. He did not sound the horn when he neared the intersection. The windscreen was damp and blurred, and he kept looking out of the side of the car, over the right-hand door. Just as he was passing the crossing he saw a man on the road right alongside the car, and he immediately swerved to the right. He thought he. had missed the man, but, feeling a bump, he pulled up. Returning along the road he found the deceased, who was bleeding freely and unconscious. After the accident his lights were out, but they had been alight when he left home. They were dull, but quite good on a dark road. For a month or eix weeks his hand brake had not functioned, ann the foot brake required tightening,j though strong enough when applied.

Accused's Evidence. Accused, a man of 23, said lie had been driving for two years. lie had been using the car during the afternoon preceding the accident, and the brakes were effective. He was travelling at 15 miles an hour just before he struck the old man. Mr. Coates: Two witnesses have said you were travelling at 30 miles an hour. What do you say to that?—l would say they are a lot out. "My lights were functioning very good just before the accident," added accused. Deceased was about four Feet away when he saw him. He whipped over to the right immediately, and applied the brake. The old man was caught by the rear of the car. "Emerged from the Shadows."

Cross-examined, accused thought the old man had emerged from the shadows on' the .side of the road that were cast by the moon. Sydney Franklin, market gardener, of Mount Roskill, who rode in accused's car in the afternoon before the accident, found the brakes quite good. Several other witnesses said that the lights and brakes of accused's car were in good order. In summing up, Mr. Justice Smith said the question, of brakes was only •incidental. The main question was the kind of look-out the driver was keeping.