CAR DESTROYED.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19770, 7 November 1929, Page 7

CAR DESTROYED.

—♦ CHARGE AGAINST YOUNG MAN FAILS. [THE PBESS Special Service] AUCKLAND, November 6. A young man, Leo Mathew Dwyer, was charged in the Supreme Court, before Sir Alexander Herdman, with unlawfully destroying a motor-car, valued at £95, the property of the Traders' Finance Corporation. After a retirement of three and a half hours the jury returned a verdict of "not guilty," and accused was discharged. The case arose out of an accident to a ear driven by Dwyer on September 15th, when he was returning to Xihotapu from the city. He alleged that he had had trouble with the headlights and later blockages in the benzine tank. Whilst attending to one of the latter happenings, and endeavouring to procure a fern stick to rectify it, the car, which had the hand brake on, commenced to move backward down the hill, and he was unable to stop the vehicle from going over a cliff. Kathleen Dwyer, proprietress of an accommodation house Nihotapu, said her son lived with her. She had purchased a car in 1928 on the time-pay-ment system, paying £3O deposit. An arrangement was entered into between the firm from whom the car was purchased and the Traders' Corporation whereby witness was to make monthly payments to the latter company. Some payments had become overdue, and accused left for Auckland on September 14th to arrange a loan to pay the remaining money owing on the car. He returned on September loth, and next morning witness was informed by accused that he had had an accident, and that the car had been destroyed. William Weldon Young, accountant of the Finance Company, gave evidence in respect to the arrangements entered into concerning the purchase of the car. The ear was insured under a comprehensive policy, and the company made application for the amount of the insurance. It was not erpected that the insurance company would pay more than £76, the amount due to the company. Expert evidence was given by Thomas Leslie Powell, who said he bought the car after the smash. The hand brake was in bad repair and would not hold the car. He would not risk his life with the brake. William Butterfiekl, another motor mechanic, also said the hand brake would not hold the car.