MAGISTRATE DISMISSES TWO DRIVING CHARGES

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28869, 14 April 1959, Page 16

MAGISTRATE DISMISSES TWO DRIVING CHARGES

(New Zealand Press Association)

INVERCARGILL, April 13. A motorist, who was arrested on a charge of driving while intoxicated by a traffic officer who described him as “one of the worst cases he had seen,” had the charges against him dismissed by Mr G. A. Nicholls, S.M., in the Invercargill Magistrate’s Court this morning. The defendant had been considered fit to drive by two police constables, and certified by a doctor to be capable of being in control of a car. Before Mr Nicholls on charges of driving while intoxicated, and dangerous driving, was Leonard George Maguire, aged 30, a garage attendant. He pleaded not guilty to both charges. An Invercargill City Council traffic officer, B. C. Gibbons, who was travelling to xnvercargill from Dunedin, overtook a car near Dacre which was being driven in an erratic manner, said Sergeant E. B. McCallum, who was prosecuting. The time had been about 2.30 a.m. on April 8. The car in front of the traffic officer was veering across the road, at 25 miles an hour, said Sergeant McCallum. The officer had stopped the car, and the driver had almost fallen while getting out. In evidence, Mr Gibbons said he had considered the driver “one of the worst cases he had seen.” Usual Tests He had not conducted the usual roadside tests, as he considered they would have been a “waste of time.” He had seen a glass of beer being handed over from the back seat to the front as he pulled alongside, but could not say who took it. For Maguire, Mr J. H. B. Scholefield said that, as an Invercargill city traffic officer, Mr Gibbons was not justified in making an arrest where he did. The terms of his warrant did not make allowance for such an action. The defendant could well have told him “to go to blazes,” said Mr Scholefield. Any abnormalities

which might have been seen were the affects of fatigue, and not intoxication.

On the evidence, fatigue could have been the cause, and he was not satisfied that the accused was intoxicated, nor was there any real evidence to suggest that the manner of driving hid been dangerous, said the Magistrate, dismissing the informflation on both charges.