Supreme Court APPEAL BY DRIVER

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30981, 10 February 1966, Page 8

Supreme Court APPEAL BY DRIVER

Licence Taken For Speeding

A man with eight convictions for speeding appealed before Mr Justice Macarthur in the Supreme Court yesterday against a year’s disqualification from driving, imposed in Christchurch with his eighth conviction on December 14 last.

The appellant, lan Edward Calderwood, was said to drive 30,000 miles a year as South Island representative of Fisher and Paykel, Ltd. The Court was also told that he intended to apply for partial exemption from disqualification to enable him to drive during business hours. Calderwood’s counsel (Mr J. F. Burn) said that his first seven convictions in other areas had been treated by way of fine. “T£ previous courts have treated him leniently, it is then excessive for the eigihitih Count suddenly to disqualify him for a year,” said Mr Burn. His Honour: You mean that if the Court has decided it is time this man was taught he cannot treat the 30-mile-an-hour limit with contempt, then the disqualification should be short and sharp, and if he does not learn from that, it should be longer? Mr Burn: That is my essential submission. Mr A. Hearn, for the Christchurch City Council traffic department, conceded that the year’s disqualification for speeding was out of line with practice. But a previous fine on Calderwood of f2O was also out of line, said Mr Hearn, and the Magistrate might have been entitled to say: “Everything else has failed, and so a year’s disqualification will be imposed.” His Honour ruled that the Supreme Court could quash the disqualification order and make another of its own, with power to deal with, and determine, any application for partial exemption from disqualification. Because a complete disqualification from driving would impose great hardship on Calderwood, it was an appropriate case for the filing of an affidavit as to the exact effects of that hardship. Accordingly, said his Honour, his decision on the appeal would be reserved, pending receipt of an affidavit.