Car passenger convicted of intimidation on the road

Press, 24 August 1976, Page 2

Car passenger convicted of intimidation on the road

The chase of a van by a cat along the Akaroa highway led to the conviction in the Christchurch Magistrate’s Court yesterday of one of the car’s passengers on a charge of intimidation. Tony Graeme Wealleans, aged 20, a driver, was fined $4O and disqualified from driving for 12 months. He was also ordered to pay witnesses expenses of $19.50. He had previously pleaded not guilty.

For the police, Sergeant M. P. Caldwell called four witnesses: Mr G. McGregor, the driver of the van; Mr S. M. Connor, one of his two passengers; Constable R. H. Moore; and Mr T. Boreham, the driver of the car In which Wealleans was a passenger. The latter had been convicted on a charge of intimidation previously for his part in the same offence. Counsel for the defendant (Mr T. M. Abbott) called no evidence.

Both Mr McGregor and Mr Connor told the Magistrate (Mr H. J. Evans, S.M.) how, on the afternoon of April 3, his van had been pursued towards Christchurch by a car and two motor-cycles, after visiting the Little River Hotel. As they approached a bend the two motor-cyclists, who were level with the rear of the van, had skidded off the road and crashed; one to the left and the other to the right. Thereafter the car began a series of overtaking movements in an attempt to make the van stop. A speed of up to 65 m.p.h. was reached. During one of the overtaking manoeuvres the passenger in the left front seat

of the car threw a soft-drink bottle on to the van’s bonnet and broke the radio aerial; and the passenger in the left rear seat leaned out of the window and hit the van’s, roof three times with what turned out to be a wooden shovel handle.

When the car forced Mr McGregor to slow to about 30 m.p.h. the passenger in the right rear seat opened the car door and leaned out brandishing a knife about 6in long. At one stage the pursuing car also shunted the van and ripped off the rear bumper. Damage to the van amounted to $l7O. Mr McGregor said that after that he drove to Christchurch in the middle of the road to avoid being overtaken again. Mr Connor said he had recorded the car’s registration number. He felt that the persons in the car were trying “to get even with them, because they thought they had been responsible for the motor-cycle accident.”

Asked by the Magistrate if he thought that speeding on towards Christchurch was the best course of action, he said: “Yes. I was frightened when I saw the knife, bottle, and shovel handle. I thought if we slopped they would set upon us.”

The witnesses said that at. no stage had their van touched the motor-cyclists, nor had they provoked them in any way. Constable Moore said that in an interview the defendant told him he had merely waved the shovel handle at the occupants of the van to show “he meant business” because they had knocked his friends off their motorcycles.

The constable said he took that, to mean that given the chance the defendant would have attacked the van’s occupants. The defendant was not co-operative. Mr Boreham identified Wealleans as the person who had occupied the rear left seat of his car but said' he had not seen him do any-l thing other than sit there. The Magistrate said he was satisfied that the defendant had been identi-j fied sufficiently, and there was evidence of sufficient threat to amount to intimidation.