Magistrate’s Court FINED FOR FAILING TO REPORT DAMAGE

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28950, 18 July 1959, Page 17

Magistrate’s Court FINED FOR FAILING TO REPORT DAMAGE

...Driving along Hereford street to the Latimer Dance Hall on the evening of May 17, Max Galvin Ireland was talking to his companion and let his attention wander from the road, with the result he struck a parked car and extensively damaged it, according to police evidence in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. Then because he was driving a late-model car he had borrowed from his grandfather, he “panicked” and ’ did not report the incident.

Pleading guilty, Ireland, a labourer in the maintenance branch of the Railways Department, was convicted and fined £lO for failing to report accident damage within 48 hours, arid £5 for driving without due care. In addition, Mr E. A. Lee, S.M., suspended Ireland’s driver’s licence for three months.

Evidence was given that the car Ireland struck was correctly parked outside its owner’s house, and almost directly under a street light. It was extensively damaged along the right-hand side.

In a statement to the police after he had been located, Ireland said he had been talking to his companion and glanced away from the road. Then his companion had cried ‘.‘Look out!” but before he could do anything, he had struck the car parked on his left.

Ireland said he stopped about 100 yards down the road, and found there was muduard damage to the front of his car. He did not go back to the parked car. He continued on to the Latimer Service Station where he borrowed a tyre lever and forced his front mudguard back into position. “I panicked, and because it was my grandfather’s car I did not report the accident,” Ireland’s statement said. MOTORIST HIT CYCLISTS A motorist who noticed another having engine trouble in Condell avenue, Papanui, about 8 p.m. on May 5, had thoughts of stopping to help, but then saw the other motorist put down his bonnet, and so drove on. The next instant he’ “felt a bump” and found he had struck two secondary-school pupils who had been standing with their bicycles on the other side of the road. They were injured, and spent two days in hospital. The motorist, Laurie Arnold Green, a service station manager, for whom Mr I. A. Pringle appeared, pleaded guilty to driving without due care, and was convicted and fined £lO. The children had been standing on the left-hand side of the road, about three feet out on the bitumen, and although their bicycle lights were facing away from Green, their machines had white rear mudguards and red reflectors and they “should have been seen,” said Sergeant V. F. Townshend. Mr Pringle said that Condell avenue was a dark street, with trees down the side, and by standing where they did, wearing dark clothing, the children were “very largely the authors of their own misfortune.” DROVE AGAINST LIGHTS James Peter Bremner swung on the inside of a taxi waiting for traffic lights at the corner of Manchester, Lichfield, and High streets just before midnight on May 9, and continued north-west up High street from Manchester street against the red lights. He attracted the attention of a police patrol car near the scene,

which followed him as he traced a devious route around city blocks, swinging wide at . corners, into Tuam street, where he was stopped. As a result of this episode, Bremner, a 17-year-old factory hand, was convicted and fined £l5 for dangerous driving and had his licence cancelled for a year. He pleaded guilty. OTHER TRAFFIC CHARGES In other traffic prosecutions brought by the police, offenders were fined as follows:

Driving without due care: Alan Wayne Boyds, £3 (no warrant of fitness, £1); James Frear Forster, £7; John Johnston, £4; Thomas William Cook, £5 (no warrant of fitness, costs oply); Patrick William O’Brien, £4 (no warrant of fitness. £1); Ernest Arthur Taylor, £6; Leslie Williams, £lO and licence suspended for 18 months and endorsed for three years (no warrant of fitness, £1). 4

Failing to give way to the right:Brian Anderson, £4; Neville James Barton', £4; Larry Talbot John Bryant, £4; Eric Colbeck. £4; John Howson, £4; Robert Moot £2; Gavin Sinclair McKav, £2; John Prendergast. £4; Frederick Arthur Simpson. £2; Ethel May Tinnock, £4. Failing to observe compulsory stop: Raymond Arthur Blackwell, £4. Opening car door so as likely to cause injury.—Alfred Erskine Brophy, £3. No warrant of fitness.—Max Raymond Hall, £l. Insufficient lights on horsefloat.—Earle Joseph Crutchley. costs only. Cycling without lights.—Brian Rodger Phillipson, £1 (front light), ordered to pay costs (rear light). PROHIBITED IMMIGRANT • Jan Roos, a seaman, was released on probation to join his ship in Wellington on August 4 when he appeared on a charge of unlawfully landing in New Zealand while a prohibited immigrant. REMANDED On a charge of theft of postal notes, valued at £1 4s. the property of Flora May Struthers, on July 5. Graham Ray Ritchie, aged 18, was remanded to July 20. Bail of £2O was allowed, with one surety of £2O. Neil Leckie, aged 41. a shop proprietor, was remanded to July 27 on a charge of driving while intoxicated on July 16. Bail of £5O was allowed with one surety of £5O. (Before Mr A. P. Blair, S.M.) FAILED TO GIVE WAY Alan Arthur Gilmore Reed was convicted and fined £3 on a charge of failing to give way on April 18. and 10s on a charge of having no warrant of fitness. Reed, for whom Mr A. D. Holland appeared, pleaded not guilty to failing to give way, but guilty to having no warrant of fitness.