Adjournment Of Appeal

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31177, 29 September 1966, Page 9

Adjournment Of Appeal

A farm worker. Gavin John Petterson, who had been involved in an early-morning accident after attending the Lincoln College ball the night before, and disqualified from driving for 12 months, appealed in the Supreme Court yesterday on the ground that the disqualification was unjustified. Petterson (Mr L. M. O’Reilly), who had not appeared when charged with careless driving, had been refused a rehearing of his case in the Magistrate’s Court on the ground that he had had adequate notice that he might be disqualified. After preliminary submissions, Mr Justice Wilson adjourned the appeal for the calling of further evidence. Mr O’Reilly said that Petterson had got to bed at 3.30 a.m. after the ball, had risen at 7 a.m., and at 7.30 a.m. had been involved in an accident in Riccarton road. This was very different from the case of a man who had been up all night His Honour said that this was an entirely new fact in the case—the implication having been, from Petterson’s statement to a traffic officer, that he had been up all night and fallen asleep at the wheel. An adjournment was directed for the calling of this new evidence, in mitigation of the penalty.