CONVICTION QUASHED

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25250, 31 July 1947, Page 3

CONVICTION QUASHED

MECHANIC CHARGED WITH CONVERTING CAR (PA.) WELLINGTON, July 30. Saying that he concluded appellant had held a bona fide belief in his right to drive along a road a car which he was testing in the course of overhauling it, the Chief Justice (Sir Humphrey O’Leary) to-day allowed the appeal of Eric Ernest Cocker, aged 37. a mechanic, against his conviction by a magistrate on a charge of converting a car and a sentence of one month’s imprisonment. Evidence in the appeal, which was taken in the form of a new trial, showed that Edgar Tomlinson, of Levin, left a used car with appellant with a request that Cocker should examine it with a view to general overhaul. Three days later when driving the car a short distance from his horn# where he was working on it, Cocker became involved in an accident while he had as passengers his father and his brother-in-law. Tomlinson said he assumed that Cocker was using the car for his own purposes. Evidence for the appellant was that having adjusted the brake cables he took the car out for a short test. As his father and brother-in-law, who lived about half a mile away, were going home, he gave them a lift. Evidence was given by another motor mechanic that it was common practice to take a car out on test during an overhaul. His Honour held that there was no intention to convert the car to private purposes. as a mechanic in such circumstances had "a colour of right” acceptable as a defence. The presence of two others in the car had no significance in this case.