APPEAL FAILS

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30937, 18 December 1965, Page 23

APPEAL FAILS

Disqualification Upheld An appeal by Alexander Henry Lewis Hamilton, alias Allan Alexander Hamilton, a scrap-metal dealer, against 12 months’ disqualification from driving for failing to giveway to the right, was dismissed by Mr Justice Macarthur in the Supreme Court yesterday. His Honour described it as a bad case of its kind. Mr M. G. L. Loughnan, for Hamilton, said that the appellant had been driving south along Fitzgerald avenue between dusk and dark and had failed to see a car approaching on his right along Hereford street, so that a collision resulted. There was no excessive speed by either vehicle, and no serious injury was sustained. Hamilton had no record of bad driving, and it was submitted, therefore, that a year’s disqualification was too severe a penalty.

His Honour, after retiring to consider his decision, said that Hamilton had clearly failed to keep a proper lookout, and was guilty of a breach of a rule which the courts had consistently held must be maintained, and not whittled away. He was not convinced that the penalty of disqualification was clearly excessive, and he must therefore dismiss the appeal. Mr N. R. Morgan appeared for the Crown to oppose the appeal.