DRUNKEN DRIVING “Intent Not Ingredient”

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31153, 1 September 1966, Page 3

DRUNKEN DRIVING “Intent Not Ingredient”

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 31. The principle of mens rea—guilty intent—was not a necessary ingredient to the offence of driving while intoxicated, Mr Justice McGregor held in a judgment delivered today. He dismissed an appeal, by way of a case stated, by Colin Edward Pearson, a driver,

against a conviction in the Magistrate’s Court on a charge of driving while intoxicated. “The learned Magistrate said it was not established by the prosecution that the appellant knew he was incapable of having proper control of his vehicle,” said his Honour. “But the Magistrate held there was no onus upon the prosecution to prove mens rea as a condition precedent to the conviction and, in effect, that the intention of Parliament was to prohibit absolutely driving when the driver was incapable of proper control.” “I accept that there is a

presumption that mens rea is an ingredient of every statutory offence, but it is still a matter of construction of the statute whether the Legislature intended mens rea to be a necessary ingredient. “While mens rea may be an element in so far as the intention to drive is concerned. I do not think the intention of the Legislature was to make the driver the judge of the extent of his state of sobriety or insobriety. “For a person to be allowed to decide whether his physical or mental state rendered him incapable of having proper control would seem to result in absurdity, for that would make him judge of his own cause. “The intention of the ■Legislature in the interests of public safety, in my view, was at least to prohibit absolutely the act of intentional driving by a person unfit to control his vehicle. “It is clear the accused knowingly drove his car and was not in such a state of drunkenness as to be incapable of forming any intention. It seems to me that even if the offence is not one of absolute liability, on the fact as found by the Magistrate the accused was rightly convicted. “His opinion as to his capa-

bility was a matter only to be weighed as part of the evidence and was rejected by the Magistrate as an incorrect opinion. The Magistrate did not err in law.”