SUPREME COURT Driving Tutor Has Conviction Quashed

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30998, 2 March 1966, Page 23

SUPREME COURT Driving Tutor Has Conviction Quashed

A man teaching a woman learner-driver who became involved in an accident in St. Albans street last July could not be said to have abetted her in careless driving, Mr Justice Macarthur ruled in a reserved decision given in the Supreme Court. His Honour has upheld an appeal by Eric Louis Theeman, a gardener, against a conviction for abetting an offence of careless driving, entered in the Magistrate’s Court on October 8.

Theeman's pupil, in the course of a driving lesson, had turned left out of Abberley crescent into St. Albans street, after first making a stop, but had swung wide on to the wrong side of the road. Theeman, endeavouring to avoid an on-coming car, had grabbed the steering wheel, and was said, in the Magistrate’s words, to have “guided the car in a zig-zag fashion 80ft down St. Albans street” before the collision. On this basis the Magistrate held him guilty of abetting his pupil in careless driving. His Honour, after examining all the evidence, held that Theeman had been absolved from all blame by the Magistrate up to the time he grabbed the wheel. “He did not instigate or incite his pupil’s offence—he endeavoured to deal with the dangerous situation," said his Honour. “The emergency was such that the appellant grabbed the wheel and endeavoured to bring the car on to its correct side of the road.”

His Honour held it was not reasonable to attribute fault to him for doing that in the circumstances. and quashed Theeman’s conviction.

Mr W. A. Wilson appeared for Theeman.