SENTENCE REDUCED

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32640, 23 June 1971, Page 22

SENTENCE REDUCED

Driving ban cancelled

A period of six months disqualification imposed in the Magistrate’s Court on a driver was quashed by Mr Justice Wilson in the Supreme Court yesterday when the driver appealed against conviction and sentence.

The driver, Percy David Taylor, an office-machine mechanic, had been fined $4O and ordered to pay witnesses’ expenses of $6.50 and his licence had been cancelled for six months after he had been convicted in the Magistrate’s Court on a charge of causing bodily injury to Anthony William Reynolds and Michael John Shepherd by careless use of a car in Burwood Road on February

Evidence was given in the Magistrate's Court that the appellant, who was driving a taxi, was making a right turn into the entrance of the Burwood Hospital nurses’ home when the taxi was struck by a motor-cycle carrying a pillion passenger. Mr K. N. Hampton appeared for the appellant and Mr G. K. Panckhurst for the Crown.

His Honour dismissed the appeal against conviction, but upheld the appeal against sentence and quashed the period of six months disqualification. His Honour said that in his opinion there were special circumstances why the normally mandatory period of six months disqualication should not have been imposed. The appellant was making a turn across a road where visibility of approaching traffic was limited and he had been distracted by his passengers* directing him from the hospital entrance to the entrance of the nurses’ home.

The appellant was travelling very slowly and a substantial part of the blame for the injuries suffered by the persons on the motor-cycle was attributable to the rider of the motor-cycle. The rider of the motor-cycle did not take any evasive action until he was virtually on the slowly moving taxi and he wa# travelling at a substantial speed.