Supreme Court DRIVER’S DISQUALIFICATION REDUCED ON APPEAL

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28599, 30 May 1958, Page 6

Supreme Court DRIVER’S DISQUALIFICATION REDUCED ON APPEAL

A period of 18 months* disqualification from driving imposed on Jack Sydney Valentine Bott, agea 51, a labourer, on a charge of being intoxicated while in charge of a truck, was reduced to 12 months by Mr Justice Adams in the Supreme Court yesterday. His Honour allowed an appeal by Bott against the disqualification after legal argument had been submitted by Mr J. G. Leggat for the appellant, and Mr C. M. Roper for the Crown, as respondent. When Bott was convicted in the Magistrate’s Court on March 18, he was fined £lO and his driving licence was suspended for 18 months., The grounds of his appeal were that either the Magistrate had no right to disqualify him from driving or that the period of disqualification imposed was excessive. Mr Leggat submitted that Bott had refrained from driving at the time of his arrest. The appellant had been dealt with in a similar manner to a minor offender on a much more serious charge of driving while intoxicated.. Since 1953 the legislation had made a distinction between “active” drunken driving and being in charge of a stationary vehicle while drunk, said Mr Roper. The intention of the legislation was to guard against any actual danger to the public in the form of either a drunken driver or the potential driving of a drunken man in charge of a vehicle.

A driver who was so drunk as to be incapable of driving would

not lose his licence if the appellant’s argument was accepted, said counsel. His Honour held that the Magistrate did have jurisdiction to impose the fine and the disqualification. It had however, not been proved that the appellant had driven the vehicle while intoxicated and a shorter term of disqualification would have been more appropriate, he said.