Driver who hit P.M.’s car fined

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33435, 17 January 1974, Page 2

Driver who hit P.M.’s car fined

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, January 16. A man whose car severely damaged <> parked car in which the Prime Minister (Mr Kirk), Mrs Kirk, and the television entertainer, David Frost, were passengers was fined $l6O by Mr G. P. Monaghan, S.M., in the Wellington Magistrate’s Court yesterday for driving with an excessive blood-alcohol level.

James McKinney, a contractor, of Lower Hutt, pleaded not guilty. . He was ordered to pay medical expenses of $10.50, $3.50 witness’ expenses, and was disqualified from driving for 15 months. On a charge of carelessly ; using, a car, to which he also pleaded not guilty, he was convicted and discharged. Robert Gordon Manson, a chauffeur, said that at 1.40 a.m. on September 8 he stopped a Ministerial car by the Waterloo Hotel to let out a passenger. The car had been stopped for about two or three minutes with all its lights on when it was hit from behind. Mrs Kirk was slightly injured. McKinney was the driver of the other car. Sergeant C. R. Libby said that at 2.15 a.m, he spoke to McKinney at Wellington Hospital, where he had been taken with another occupant of his car. McKinney had said he had been driving north on Waterloo Quay at a speed of about 25 miles an hour, and was in the extreme left lane. He saw the parked Ministerial car, and turned to the right

to avoid it, but. had no control. Analysis of a specimen of the defendant’s blood showed a level of 186 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood. The Magistrate said the departmental car was parked in an area covered by a dotted yellow line, which indicated that cars should not, park there. But McKinney was in the wrong lane.