CHARGE AGAINST MOTORIST

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26971, 21 February 1953, Page 2

CHARGE AGAINST MOTORIST

SUBSTITUTION BY MAGISTRATE

ACCIDENT ON WEST COAST ROAD

A charge of driving in a nianner dangerous to the public was substituted by Mr Rex C. Abernethy, S.M., after he had heard evidence in a case in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday in which Thomas McKay Wilkins, a plasterer, aged 32 (Mr W. R. Lascelles) pleaded not guilty to a charge of being intoxicated in charge of a motorcar on the West Coast road on February 13. Wilkins was remanded until Monday on the substituted charge. Alister Ambrose Bruce, a taxi driver, said that on the night of February 13 he had stopped his car outside the gates of the Paparua prison. He saw a car approaching from the west very fast. Later; when he was returning to Christchurch, he saw a car overturned in a hedge. The driver stopped him. No other cars had passed him while he was outside the prison. He would not say the damaged car and the one he saw travelling fast were the same.

Graham Marriott, a police sergeant, said he went to the scene of the accident. Hie car had turned right round and was facing west. It was in a hedge, with the undercarriage facing the road. After observation he decided the accused was under the ipfluence of liquor. His breath smelt strongly of liquor and he staggered when he walked. The accused admitted having had six or seven beers during the evening, and told the witness he had been doing more than 60 miles an hour. As the witness arrived, one passenger was being taken away in an ambulance. The accused had blood on his face and another passenger had a cut on his head and was treated in hospital after getting back to Christchurch. The accused and the four passengers the witness saw were all intoxicated. The accused had told the witness he had been dazzled by the lights of an oncoming vehicle. When he arrived the clothing of all five passengers was dry. They were in a paddock, and the witness asked them to walk to the roadway. In walking there the accused went into a diten. A constable had a light shining on the ditch. The accused arrived at the police station at-1.5 a.m. and his exam- ; ination by a doctor started at 1.10 a.m.

To Mr Lascelles the witness said it was a dark night. He was satisfied the men were not suffering from shock. They had split into two groups, and it seemed tb him they were trying to get away. They seemed to feel that with the police there they had better pull themselves together. The witness agreed that the accused had gone through the tests at the police station well, but he had had an hour to sober up. Mr Lascelles referred to the doctor’s report that the accused’s suit ■ was soaking wet, and that in the doctor’s opinion the accused was fit to drive. «r-,? rgeant J- McDonald said that when Wilkins arrived at the police station he smelt very strongly of liquor. He was wearing an overcoat belonging to one of the passengers who had been injured. He had not seen Wilkins at any time that night when he could have recognised him as intoxicated.

Accused’s Evidence Wilkins said in evidence that he had visited his wife in hospital before picking up a party of friends to g oJ° b is brother’s cottage at WhitecUJs k Hls friend s worked with him and they went out to take measurements for renovations. They found four bottles of beer, and they drank in very small glasses. He had seven or eight, but he had had no liquor eartier that day. They left Whitephns about 10 p.m. Soon after passing the prison a car 1 passed them at high speed. He himself had reduced speed at the bend before the accident occurred.

Wilkins said he thought the accident was caused by his right rear tyre blowing out. When the car turned over he was thrown into the ditch and completely immersed. They all suffered from shock, and he was very cold. One of the others gave him the overcoat.

Senior-Sergeant J. C; Fletcher, who prosecuted, asked the witness whether a car normally went through such aerobatics at 30 miles an hour. The witness said it slid on the long wet grass.

In reply to another question, the witness said he was sure he had asked * j taxi-driver to call the ambulance and the police. In substituting the charge, the Magistrate said he was not prepared t 0 say that the accused was intoxicated at the time of the accident, ine evidence, however, did disclose one offence, which he proposed to substitute.