Supreme Court Man Guilty Of Negligent Driving Causing Injury

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29994, 1 December 1962, Page 19

Supreme Court Man Guilty Of Negligent Driving Causing Injury

Lionel Edward Dobson, aged 52, a railways clerk, was convicted by a Supreme Court jury yesterday of negligent driving causing injury in a hit-and-run accident on May 4.

The elderly pedestrian who was the victim of the accident died 16 days later from a blood clot, but the jury found that Dobson's negligent driving caused only injury, and not the death as the Crown had alleged.

He was also found guilty of failing to stop and failing to ascertain whether anyone had been injured.

Mr Justice Macarthur remanded Dobson in custody for sentence on all three charges next week.

Dobson was represented by Mr A. D. Holland, with him Mr L. H. Moore. The charges related to the death of Charles Mains, aged 72, a retired plumber, on May 20. He suffered head injuries and a broken leg when he was struck on a pedestrian crossing near the railway station in Moorhouse avenue, and died in hospital. Called for the defence, Dr Graham Riley, director of the medical division at the Christchurch Hospital, said Dobson had moderately severe diabetes and had had it for 10 years.

Witness said Dobson took daily doses of long-acting insulin, and it was well known that that type of insulin could cause unusual behaviour related to amnesia and loss of memory for considerable periods of time. Long-acting insulin would sometimes lead to automatic behaviour.

He quoted from three medical authorities to show that brain function was dependent on a normal blood-sugar level.

One of his authorities said that amnesia from a lowering of blood-sugar could, in rare instances, last several hours, during which the patient appeared to act normally. He need not have a history of previous similar disturbances. The effect could be magnified by alcohol and emotional disturbances could play a part. Riley said that in those cases, any independent judgment or thinking would be in abeyance. Cross-examined, Riley said the action of accelerating away from an accident would not necessarily be the result of reasoning but eould be a simple, primitive escape reaction.

Dobson, giving evidence on his own behalf, said he had had a day off work the day of the accident, and went into town after receiving a telegram about a family matter which upset him. He had only three or four beers before starting out for his car again, and from that point remembered nothing until he came to in Grahams road four hours later. Cross - examined, Dobson said he knew of the symptoms of lowered blood-sugar because he read about it when he was in hospital two years previously recovering from similar symptoms. Sergeant G E. Hoare said a hub cap of Dobson’s car had come off when the car grazed a kerb when travelling in the opposite direction down Moorhouse avenue. He appeared to have been in two accidents.

Addressing the jury. Mr Holland said he agreed Dobson’s story was unlikely, but

its very weaknesses did not fit the picture of a cunning and callous liar.

He suggested Dobson was in a state of automatism.

driving on his reflexes, and not conscious of what he was doing. A man had to be knowingly and deliberately driving to be capable of being guilty of negligence, and Dobson’s defence was that he was not responsible for his actions. If the jury did not accept the proposition of automatism, Dobson was still not negligent because Mains had run out in front of his car and there was nothing he could do.

Mr C. M. Roper, the Crown Prosecutor, told the jury that it was not in the position of having to decide whether to accept the evidence of Dr Riley, a clever and widely respected doctor, because Dr Riley had had to depend entirely on the story Dobson told him.

Instead, it had to test Dobson’s story, bearing in mind the casual way that Dobson accepted his extraordinary four-hour loss of memory. Dobson did not seek medical aid, did not tell his wife what had happened, and did not inquire at his office to see if he had carried out his intention of paying a visit there.

On top of that he was not altogether a layman on the effects of lowered bloodsugar, having read medical books about it.