MAGISTRATE’S COURT Twelve Months’ Gaol For Unlawfully Taking Car

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31322, 18 March 1967, Page 19

MAGISTRATE’S COURT Twelve Months’ Gaol For Unlawfully Taking Car

Appearing for sentence on a charge of unlawfully taking a car valued at £575 on March 4, Kenneth Kupu Hokai, aged 25 (Mr G. R. Lascelles), was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment by Mr K. H. J. Headifen, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday.

The Court had to consider both the public good and the rehabilitation of the offender, the Magistrate said. Hokai had been given several chances in the past, and it was now useless to pursue a course of rehabilitation. Hokri had never offended until he was 18, Mr Lascelles said. After a term of Borstal training he had then stayed out of trouble for three years. Hokai was appearing for the fourth time on a charge of unlawfully taking a car, the Magistrate said. He had committed offences while on probation. The sentence was the minimum that should be imposed considering the chances Hokai had been given in the past. Parliament obviously considered the offence seriously, and hat’ provided a maximum penalty of several years’ imprisonment. DRIVER GAOLED

“This is a case for imprisonment if ever there was one,” the Magistrate told Wilfred John Dal lo w, aged 40, a driver (Mr L. M. O’Reilly), sentencing him to seven days’ gaol on a charge of driving under the influence of drink or drugs on March 9. He was disqualified from driving for three years. Dallow, who pleaded guilty, had been involved in a threecar accident at the intersection of Cass and Colombo streets, the Court was told. He was arrested and found unfit to drive.

The loss of Dallow’s licence would mean the loss of his job, Mr O’Reilly said. He was unfitted for heavy work and would suffer severe financial hardship. He suffered from asthma and had been away from work, going in only to collect his pay. Unfortunately after doing so he had consumed about 12 five-ounce beers.

In spite of all the publicity on drinking and driving Dallow, although too ill to go to work, had drunk 60 ounces of beer and had an accident, the Magistrate said. It was because of his previous good record that he was being sent to prison for only seven days. DANGEROUS SPEED

Stanley Lawrence Davis, a salesman (Mr M. J. Glue), was fined £lO on a charge of driving at a speed which might have been dangerous, and his licence was cancelled for 12 months. He pleaded not guilty. The charge arose from an accident between Davis’s car and another in Colombo street, Sydenham, about midnight on December 18 last year. Davis’s car hit another which had turned on to Colombo street from a car park, and left skid marks 113 ft long, the Court was told.

Davis was travelling at grossly excessive speed, and because of this collided with the other car, the Magistrate said. OBSCENE EXPOSURE Archibald David McDonald aged 37 (Mr L. M. O’Reilly) was charged with committing an indecent act in the Botanic gardens on March 16, and with obscene exposure in the gardens on November 19 last year. He pleaded guilty and was remanded on bail to March 23 for sentence. ESCAPED Eric Francis Elkis, aged 45, was ordered to come up for sentence in 12 months if called on when he appeared on a charge of escaping from Sunnyside Hospital on February 15. He had previously pleaded guilty. He' was ordered to be returned to the hospital. MINOR FINED Gavin Patrick Topp, charged with purchasing liquor as a minor on February 11, and giving false particulars to the police on the same day, was fined £4 on each charge. He did not appear. FOUND DRUNK Cornelius Hanafln, aged 70, a pensioner, was fined £2, in default three days' imprisonment on a charge of being found drunk having been previously convicted of drunkenness within the last six months. OBSTRUCTED POLICE Michael Harold Cleghorn pleaded guilty to charges of resisting and wilfully obstructing Constable Richard Ernest Watson in the execution of his duty. Watson had been arresting Patricia Mackie for using obscene language in Moorhouse avenue on March 16 when Cleghorn attempted to prevent him, and had to be handcuffed. A factory labourer, aged 24, he was fined £l5 on each charge. Mackie, a factory hand, aged 21, pleaded guilty to using obscene language and was fined £lO.

FOUND IN FLAT Raymond Arthur Dent, aged 23, a builder’s labourer (Mr D. H. P. Dawson), pleaded guilty to a charge of being unlawfully on enclosed premises, a vacant flat in Gloucester street, on March 10. He had been found asleep with another man after a party had been given there by an unknown person. Dent was fined £7 10s. (Before Mr E. A. Lee, S.M.) FOURTH MONTHS’ GAOL Keith Mouritsen, aged 36, a ditch cleaner, was sentenced to four months' imprisonment when he appeared for sentence on a charge of attempted false pretences. Detective Sergeant A. B. Dalzell said Mouritsen obtained credit from the Commercial Bank of Australia with a false cheque for £127 6s on March 9. BORSTAL “You are building up a criminal record and you are now a social and criminal problem,” said the Magistrate in sentencing Leonard Francis Barrett, aged 17, unemployed, to a period of Borstal training. Barrett was appearing for sentence on a charge of theft of wrist watches, to the value of £92 2s, from Crescent Jewellers, on March 6. (Before Mr P. L. Mollneaux, S.M.) AUTHORITY QUERIED “There is no stated authority for traffic officers to conduct the flow of traffic, but the ingredients of negligence have to be decided regardless of whether or not the traffic officer was entitled to be there (on point duty)," said the Magistrate when David Conway Hopkins, aged 23, an engineering student, pleaded not guilty to careless use of a motorvehicle on November 10.

Counsel for Hopkins, Mr R. L. Kerr, had submitted that because the traffic officer had no jurisdiction to control and direct traffic at intersections, the defendant was correct in proceeding as he did along Blenheim road at the intersection of Matipo street, which was controlled by compulsory stop signs. Hopkins, who claimed not to have seen a traffic officer on duty at the intersection, was driving west along Blenheim road, when he collided with a car moving south on Matipo street. The Magistrate said that whether or not the traffic officer was in authority—“even if it was a schoolboy masquerading as a traffic officer"—the prudent driver would obey the officer. "They (traffic officers) are accepted by motorists whether or not they are meant to be there.” Hopkins was convicted and fined £6. “UNWRITTEN RULE” A charge of inconsiderate use of a vehicle against Donald Randell Gordon was dismissed without any defence evidence being called, but an application for costs was rejected. Gordon, an electrician, aged 33 (Mr M. J. Glue), had moved straight ahead from the lefthand lane of Clarence street at

its intersection with Riccarton road on December 21. The lane was marked with arrows for straight-through traffic and left turns, but the road facing the intersection. Straven road, was offset to the right. A driver from the right-hand lane had slowed to make room for Gordon. Traffic Officer E. B. McClintock had said that there was “an unwritten rule” that this lane could not be used for Straven road traffic. To accept this would be advancing a concept quite new to New Zealand law, Mr Glue said. "Is this inconsiderate use?” the Magistrate said. “It is very considerate on the part of the other driver.” TRAFFIC FINES On other traffic charges brought by the Transport Department, offenders were dealt with as follows, with costs of £1 10s in each case:—

Failed to give way to right: Margaret Ashwell, £6; Katherine Margaret Thomson, £6.