Young driver sentenced

Press, 18 February 1977, Page 3

Young driver sentenced

! PA Dunedin, A hit-and-run driver, Gary Ivan Currie, was sentenced to detention centre, fined $4OO and banned from driving for six years, when he appeared before Mr J. D. Murray, S.M., in the Dunedin Magistrate’s Court yes-* terday. Michael Philip Wilson, a passenger in the car which struck and killed a young Fijian Indian last month, was sentenced to four months residential periodic detention. 1 to be followed by a year on, I probation. The Magistrate said the! 'pair had made “strenuous!

efforts” to change the car’s' appearance after the acci-j dent and had done nothing to help the police. Currie, aged 18, a carpenter’s labourer, was sentenced on a dangerous driving causing death charge, to which he pleaded guilty last week. On charges of failing to stop after an accident and failing to ascertain if anyone was injured, he was convicted and discharged. Wilson had admitted being an accessory after the fact. The Magistrate said the accident . had attracted a great deal of public interest. This was to be expected because of the delay between

I the occurence and the youth’s' jarrest, he said. The fault which led to the ! tragedy was driving too fast I on a city street, coupled with! i‘ failing to pay proper attention. Liquor had played no I part. . i “It does seem that immeijdiately after the accident the ;jcar stopped not very far ;! awav from the scene and! I' there was some adjustment > !to clothing. Some attempt. ’■was made to change their . j outward appearance to some j i extent and the two returned , i' to the scene to find out how, .; much was known about them -! or the car they were in,” the II Magistrate said.