GUN DISCHARGED ON MAIN HIGHWAY

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25363, 10 December 1947, Page 3

GUN DISCHARGED ON MAIN HIGHWAY

THREE MEN FINED AT TEMUKA

From Our Own Reporter TEMUKA,* December 9. An incident at Orari, when a gun was discharged on the main highway, and the three-year-old son of a well-known Canterbury racehorse owner was thrown from his horse and injured, was recalled in the Temuka Magistrate’s Court this morning. Arthur Derek Glazebrook, Stanley Robson Andersbn, and James Douglas Guthrie were charged with operating a motoi vehicle on Which was carried a firearm loaded with a cartridge, and with discharging a firearm without reasonable cause in a public place between Ashburton and Orari on October <l6. None of the accused appeared, and each was fined £1 on the first charge and £3 on the second charge. / In evidence, Frank Cook Christie said that on October 16 he was .leading a racehorse on which his child was mounted .when a firearm was discharged at close quarters. He saw an old sedan car passing with a firearm protruding. The car pulled up down the road, but went on again. The horse reared and plunged, and his small son, aged three years, was thrown on the roadway. He suffered concussion and other injuries. Detective-Sergeant S. W. Hill read stateby the accused. They said that they had all taken turns at driving between Christchurch and Dunedin, and had fired 10 shots out of a single-barrel shotgun on the way. They did not notice a child on a horse. Had they known a child had been thrown from a horse they, would have stopped. They did not know which one of them had fired the shot at Orari.

The Magistrate (Mr G. G. Chisholm) said that the firing of the shot had been a senseless prank. Although the accused may not have known it was an offence to carry a loaded firearm in the car, that did not excuse them. Each admitted having fired the firearm. He would convict them all, he said.