DROVE MOTOR CAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 150, 28 June 1933, Page 11

DROVE MOTOR CAR.

INTOXICATED MAN. OWNER'S RESPONSIBILITY. CONVICTED BY MAGISTRATE. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Tuesday. An interesting judgment dealing with the responsibility of a, motorist in allowing an intoxicated person to drive his car was delivered at the Magistrate's Court to-day by Mr. E. Page, S.M. The judgment resulted in a conviction being entered against James l-'rancis Robert Beveridge, who was found in a drunken condition*in charge of his car in a right-of-way oil' Dixon Street at 12.20 a.m. on May 14. With Beveridge in the car was another intoxicated man named O'Neill, who was alleged bv Beveridge in a subsequent statement to have driven his car from tho city to Eastbourne and back after they had had "a few drinks."

At the hearing counsel for the defendant (Mr. J. Scott) did not contest the allegation that Beveridge was in a state of intoxication when accosted by the police, but lie contended that the lane in which the car was found was not a "road, street, or other place to which the public have access, whether as a right or not," within the meaning of the section under which the charge was laid.

After reviewing the evidence as to the manner in which the car had been driven, Mr. Page said that when the police interposed they found that Beveridge and O'Neill had passed the stage known as a state of intoxication, and were drunk.

"In my opinion," said Mr. Page, "when it is proved that a car was driven for a, number of miles in the erratic and dangerous manner in which this one was, and with the two occupants leaning on one another as these two were, and where it is admitted that they had had 'a few drinks' prior to the journey and where they arc discovered an hour and a half later, and are then in a fairly advanced stage of drunkenness, the proper inference to be drawn, in the absence of any explanation of the erratic and dangerous driving, is that the driver was then in a state of intoxication.

"With regard to counsel's contention that there is no proof as to which of the two was driving, it is true that there is 110 such proof, and that defendant in his statement says that it was O'Neill that had been driving. It was, 'however, defendant's car, and it was he that essayed to drive it when they were discovered later by the police. Even, however, if it were O'Neill that liacl been driving, I think that that fact does not absolve the defendant.

"My finding is that the driver of the car, when it was being driven in Willis Street, was in a state of intoxication. If the defendant was tlio driver, he must be convicted for having so driven it, and if O'Neill was the driver, the defendant must be convicted as having been a party to such unlawful driving. "In view of my decision on the above phases of the case, I do not find it necessary to consider whether the lane in which the car with the two drunken men in it was taken was a 'road, street, or other place' within the meaning of the statute. I amend the information to read 'Willis Street' instead of 'a place off Dixon Street,' and enter a conviction.

Counsel said that the defendant seldom took liquor, and this case was a solitary lapse on his part. His car had recently been destroyed as the result of an accident.

The magistrate imposed a fine of £15. Security for appeal was fixed at the amount of the fine and costs, plus £10 10/.