Judge Rules On Driving While Disqualified

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31539, 29 November 1967, Page 13

Judge Rules On Driving While Disqualified

If it be realised that mistake and ignorance are no defences to a charge of driving while disqualified, disqualified drivers will take extra care to prevent mistakes, according to Mr Justice Wilson. I His Honour has made this comment in rejecting the proposition, put forward by way of cases stated by magistrates to the Supreme Court, that a disqualified driver’s honest, but mistaken, belief that he is entitled to drive is a valid defence to a charge of driving while disqualified. His Honour had considered the case of Dennis McGonagle Blake, retired (Mr A. P. C. Tipping) who was said to have driven while disqualified because of an honest mistake (a magistrate had so found) in calculation of the! time lapse before he might! drive again—and the case of! Terence Patrick McDonald, a driver (Mr M. G. L. Loug-| hnan), who had driven in'

Christchurch while disqualified, in genuine ignorance of a disqualification imposed in Auckland. In essence, his Honour was required to find whether mens rea (guilty mind) was a necessary ingredient in the offence of driving while disqualified —and after an examination of relevant law has held, in a reserved decision, that it is not. “While appreciating all that has been said in the Privy Council and elsewhere on the reluctance with which courts should hold that mens rea is not an ingredient of an offence, I am satisfied that that is the intention of the legislature with regard to driving while disqualified.” his Honour said. A court order disqualifying a person from driving must be obeyed, said his Honour, land it is that person’s responsibility to ascertain whether! lor not such an order has I been made, and to ensure that i Ihe complies with it