FAILED TO STOP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 253, 26 October 1933, Page 17

FAILED TO STOP.

CROSSING TRAGEDY.

DRIVER'S NEGLIGENCE.

JURY RECOMMENDS MERCY.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, Wednesday.

Guilty, with a strong recommendation to mercy, was the verdict returned by the jury in the Supreme Court to-day in a case against Stanley Frank Lincoln, the driver of a motor car which crashed into a train at the Porirua railway crossing on the night of May 21. The charge, which was heard before the Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, was negligent driving so as to cause the deaths of four persons. Those killed in the accident, which occurred when Lincoln was driving his car back to Palmerston North, were Mrs. Lincoln and her four-year-old daughter, Mrs. Francis Lena Gaskin, and Miss Enwright, all of Palmerston North. "Negligence is nothing more or less than a breach of one's duty to take all reasonable care in handling a motor car," said tho Chief Justice, in summing Up, to the jury. "Accused eaid he knew of the crossing and that it was a compulsory stop. his duty was to stop. He did not do this, but went on at'about 25 miles ar hour. If that was not negligence, I don t know what is." On the jury returning a verdict of guilty, with a strong recommendation to mercy, his Honor said it entirely accorded with his own view of the matter. He would remand accused for sentence until Friday to give the fullest consideration to the jury's rider.