MANSLAUGHTER CHARGE SEQUEL TO DROWNING

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28700, 25 September 1958, Page 16

MANSLAUGHTER CHARGE SEQUEL TO DROWNING

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, Sept. 24.

A charge pf manslaughter was brought .by the police today against a 17-year-old youth who allegedly drove a light car on to the breakwater near Moa Point, at the eastern side of Lyall Bay, on June 28, The car was washed off the breakwater and one of the three occupants was drowned. The accused, Hamish Donald Shepherd, a clerk, was charged with failing to take reasonable care while driving the car. thereby causing the death of Thomas Basil Hill and committing manslaughter. - The hearing is before Mr J. B. Thomson, S.M. Mr R. E. Pope appeared for Shepherd, and the prosecution was conducted ,by Mr F. O. Scott. An eye-witness account of the tragedy was given by Frank William Mitchell, aged 16, who was in another small car near the breakwater at the time. Mitchell said he knew the three youths who drove along the breakwater. Shepherd was driving, and William Kidman, who owned the car, was sitting in the front passenger seat alongside him. Witness said he did not think it was dangerous for them to go on to the breakwater. ‘‘l didn’t think they’d evert get wet.’’ The car went to the end of the breakwater and then started to back. A wave came over and slewed it round. Witness saw a door open and someone trying to get out. Then a big wave came over and the car was hidden from his sight. When the wave cleared the car was gone. Witness and a companion went round the beach to a bay and called out to Kidman and Hill to swim towards them. Shepherd was swimtnipg back to the breakwater. ' , “Hill was swimming toward us a few yards behind Kidman,” said

witness. “He was about 15 or 20 yards from ,us when he disappeared; We did not see him again,’* Evidence of Rescue Bernard Joseph Wallan, a memof the Maranui Surf Club, said that he was in attendance at the surf clubrooms at Lyall Bay when an emergency call was made from the breakwater. A strong southerly was blowing and big waves were pounding against the breakwater. Near the breakwater either bn rocks or in the water,witness saw .three people. Witness and the club captain ran to the club house to get a reel and a water ski with the object of rescuing the youths from the rocks. They returned with the equipment and helped assist three people from the water. Later they discovered that one of these persons was a rescuer and that there was still one of the car’s occupants missing. Keith Andrew Carwell Cook, a member of the Maranui Surf Club, said he was at the surf clubhouse on June 28. Questioned by Mr Pope, witness said that unless a driver had seen some of the “boomers” he might not have realised the danger of driving on the breakwater. From the time of the accident to 3.30 p.m. he had only seen four large waves pound over the breakwater. He agreed that the seaward end of the breakwater would be obscured to motorists by tetrapods and by a curve in the breakwater itself. The hearing will continue tomorrow morning.