Man claims loss of memory

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33874, 20 June 1975, Page 21

Man claims loss of memory

A man of 25 yasterday told the Magistrate’s Court he had lost his memory and did not remember much of the offences he was charged with.

Before Mr K. H. J. Headifen. S.M., was Allen Leslie Graham, a steward (Mr P. Egden), who pleaded not guilty to charges of behaving in a threatening manner, resisting a constable, and dangerous driving, on March 25.

The Magistrate reserved his decision to June 30.

Defence evidence was given yesterday after the case had been adjourned part-heard earlier. Sergeant I. M. Gardiner appeared for the police. The Court had heard that a newspaper delivery boy and his mother had allegedly been threatened by a man in a car in a Merivale Street.

In evidence, Graham said he went to the Papanui Hotel. He left about 8 p.m. after having had four to five small bottles of beer.

He went out to his car, slipped and hit his head on the corner of a trailer parked next to his car. He felt dizzy, but got in his car and drove off.

“About Merivale I felt faint. My head was aching, I couldn’t focus properly and I felt sick. “I turned into a street and lost my memory. My mind was a blank.” He said he remembered talking to a police officer, hitting something, and having something tight on his fists. Next day he went to the doctor who said he had been concussed. Sergeant Gardiner asked the defendant: “You can remember some things and not others is this by convenience?” Defendant: “No. definitely not. I can only tell you what I remember.” Miss C. A. Young, a barmaid, said she noticed the defendant getting up off the ground by his car in the hotel car park. He had blood, from a cut above his left eye. coming down his face. Senior-Sergeant W. R. Withers said he saw the defendant about 10 p.m. that night: “When I first saw him I thought he was under the influence of drink, but then gained the impression he might have been using drugs.”

Dr P. M. Shaw said that Graham had visited him the day after the alleged incidents took place. “He had a liu laceration and heavy bruising above his eye, which was consistent with having struck his head on a blunt object,” he said. Witness said that Graham was concussed: "Concussion is accompanied with amnesia, and it can leave a diminished consciousness.

"Often persons do things they can’t remember afterward which are abnormal in the circumstances,” he said.

Dr Shaw said the defendant could have been in such a state that he was not aware of what he was doing. Beer would also accentuate concussion.

“If I’d seen the defendant on the night in question I would have had no hesitation in putting him in hospital,” he said.