FATAL NEGLIGENCE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22464, 27 July 1938, Page 9

FATAL NEGLIGENCE

MOTORIST SENT TO GAOL PRISONERS SENTENCED AT AUCKLAND ■ (PKCS3 ASaOCIATIO* T*i.io*Ait.l AUCKLAND, July 26. John Frederick Copley was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment with hard labour for negligently driving a motorcar so as to cause death. His driving licence was cancelled for three years. The offence, said Mr Justice Callan. was not the worst of the kind, neither was it the least serious. There was in it something more than a momentary relaxation of attention. Edward Donovan and Kenneth william Edward Bates, for breaking and entering a Rotorua counting-house with intent to blow up a safe with gelignite, came before; Mr Justice Fair for sentence- Donovan was also charged with breaking into a Taupiri store, and Bates was charged with having escaped from custody, at the police station cell at Rotorua. . His Honour said Donovan was declared an habitual criminal, and was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment There seemed to be some hope for Bates, whose record was much lighter. He was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment for breaking and entering and six months more for escaping from custody. Walter Alfred Church, aged 20. was sentenced to three years’ reformative detention for assault on an elderly woman in the Drury district.