Probation for driving-injury

Press, 15 June 1979, Page 11

Probation for driving-injury

Greymouth reporter

A Runanga youth, aged 17, was admitted to probation for two years and ordered to perform 150 hours community work when he appeared for sentence in the Greymouth Magistrate’s Court yesterday afternoon on a charge of dangerous driving causing bodily injury. Larry Kenneth Brown, a mine trucker, had pleaded guilty in the Court 0n Wednesday to a charge of causing bodily injury to Lenin Douglas Kaye, and had been remanded for a probation officer’s report and sentence. The Court was told earlier that Brown had been in his car with three companions, cutting figures of eight in a picnic area, when one of the others, Mr Kaye, decided to ride in the boot of the car. The car had later plunged over a bank and Mr Kaye had been seriously injured. Mr K. J. Taylor, for Brown, said that the offence had resulted from “skylarking.” The defendant had

driven for a short distance with his friend in the boot of the car and when he went to stop to get Mr Kaye back into the car the vehicle had skidded in the grass and gone over the bank.

Mr Taylor said that Brown had been “inadvertent as to the consequences of his actions.”

The Magistrate asked Sen-ior-Sergeant B. J. White about the present medical condition of Mr Kaye and was told that he was now back at work.

“It may pay you to read this medical report (on Mr Kaye),” the Magistrate told the defendant. “This offence was the result of the consumption of alcohol, inexperience, immaturity and as your counsel says, skylarking “By far the worst part is the serious injuries suffered by Mr Kaye.” However, he took into consideration the defendant’s age, the fact that he had shown remorse and that it was his first offence. The defendant was also disqualified from driving for two years.