Driving charge against schoolboy dismissed

Press, 12 September 1987, Page 4

Driving charge against schoolboy dismissed

Without requiring tne defence case to be called, Judge McAloon in the District Court yesterday dismissed a fatal driving charge against a secondary school pupil. In doing so the Judge expressed reservations about the methodology adopted by the two traffic officers in obtaining details of the accident from the defendant The defendant, Stephen Max Warwick Rountree, aged 18, pleaded not guilty to a charge of careless driving causing the death of a schoolboy cyclist Dennis Richard James Mcllraith, in St Albans Street shortly before 9.30 p.m. on January 23. After the completion of prosecution evidence defence counsel, Mr K. N. Hampton, submitted there was no prima facie case to answer and that the charge should be dismissed. The Judge upheld this. Sergeant W. P. Creasey prosecuted. A pathologist, Dr L. L. Treadgold, gave evidence of a post-mortem examination of the cyclist’s body. This showed he died of severe head injuries suffered in a motor accident. Peggy Mary Storer, a retired schoolteacher, said she had been walking in St Albans Street towards her house and saw a boy stopped on his bicycle, alongside the footpath, appearing to be switching on his dynamo. Just before she walked into her driveway the boy made a U-turn on the street to travel towards Papanui Road. He did not seem quite sure what he was doing, and seemed to. wobble a little and was unsteady. He could have been just gaining in momentum, she said. She did not notice whether the cyclist’s lights were working. It was still daylight, but a motorist should be thinking of putting his vehicle lights on about that time, she said. Miss Storer said the cyclist was travelling in about the middle of his side of the street. She then went into her property and soon after heard a loud bang and returned to the street to see a "large black cloud of smoke.” Soon after she saw the cyclist lying beside his bicycle in the street. She coma not remember seeing a vehicle in the vicin-

Cross-examined, she said the light was still very good. She could not remember the sun having set

The cyclist had been further out in the road than she would have expected a cyclist to travel, when she last saw him before the collision. Another resident, Maree Fay Sharland, an industrial officer, said she heard a noise and then an “impact” and ran from her house to the street calling to her husband. At. her gateway she saw the 1 defendant walk to a white car and drive away. He approached it from an angle as though having come from the middle of the road. She went behind the car to try to get its registration number but was unsuccessful, partly because it travelled away fairly quickly. She then saw the cyclist in the middle of the road.

She ran inside, and checked that her husband had called an ambulance. Others were assisting the cyclist. She saw another young man who appeared dazed as though he also had been in the accident, and assisted him. Traffic Officer A. J. Carr gave evidence of answering the call to the accident scene received at 9.29 p.m. After speaking to witnesses he drove in the area to look for the car that had driven from the scene, and saw it in Office Road, approaching Papanui Road.

Rountree was the driver and said he had been driving when the collision occurred. He said he had been travelling at 57 to 63 km/h and saw the cyclist on the middle line, pedalling slowly. He thought the cyclist was going to turn left because he moved that way. He moved right to avoid the cyclist, with his car’s left wheels on the middle line, but the car hit the cyclist, who was in the middle of the road, as he tried to drive round him. Traffic Officer Cansaid Rountree initially told him his speed was 50 km/h but was told that was not correct and replied he could not give an exact speed. He was then asked for an average speed, and said 57> to 63 km/h.

Rountree told the

officer he had got back into his car and driven off, after ascertaining that somebody had called an

ambulance. Rountree said he had had a bottle and half a jug of beer three hours earlier.

A breath-screening test gave a negative reading, although showing some alcohol had been consumed.

The officer said he inspected the bicycle near the accident scene. The dynamo rested against the front tyre. He saw no skid marks or debris at the scene.

Cross-examined, Traffic Officer Carr said he had not recorded Rountree’s initial reply of his speed being 50 km/h because he had given the higher figure after being asked if he was sure of the first estimate. He denied that he and another traffic officer accompanying him had tried to "wring out some admission” of excessive speed from the defendant

The officer said his written report of the interview was not word perfect but it was what Rountree told him. Senior Constable M. W. Smith said that in a written statement to the police Rountree had detailed the circumstances of the collision and said the cyclist appeared to be intending to make a right turn. He prepared to pass on the left but without warning the cyclist veered left into his car’s line of travel. Rountree had said he then moved to the right to overtake but the cyclist veered suddenly to his right and collided with the front left hand of the car. The cyclist gave no signal at any stage.

Rountree had said he stopped and went back to the cyclist. He. saw the cyclist was receiving assistance, and an ambulance had been called, and so drove home. He was driving back to the scene when the traffic officers stopped him.

Rountree’s statement said the traffic officers said he was lying when he suggested his speed was 50 km/h. He was told there were witnesses who indicated his speed was much greater and they suggested 57 to 63 km/h. “They were putting words in my mouth,” the defendant’s statement said.

Mr Hampton submitted at the end of the prosecution case that there had been no evidence of carelessness by the defendant, that would have caused the collision and resulted

in the cyclist’s death. There was no evidence of excessive speed which could be said to be careless on the defendant’s part Even if evidence of speed was established it had not been shown to be the effective or proximate cause of the accident. Mr Hampton submitted that the evidence showed that Rountree had kept a proper look-out and bad seen the cyclist from some distance away. A breath test for alcohol was negative and carelessness because of alcohol consumption had not been established. The cyclist’s own actions had led to the collision and his death, Mr Hampton submitted. He referred to the evidence of the cyclist’s instability, and wobbling path shortly before the accident Ruling that there was no case to answer to the charge, the Judge said the evidence showed that Rountree was able to stop a very short distance after the impact. Because of this, and the reservations he (the Judge) had also about aspects of the evidence of two traffic officers who interviewed Rountree, he couid not hold that excessive speed had been a cause of the collision. The Judge referred particularly to the evidence of Traffic Officers A. J. Carr and J. O’Connor that Rountree initially had said his speed was about 50 km/h but that when this was disbelieved he gave a higher figure. The Judge said it also had not been stated where this speed was claimed to have been reached, in relation to the accident scone. The Judge also held there was no case established in other areas of alleged carelessness as Rountree had seen the cyclist some distance beforehand and an alcohol test had proved negative. He also was not held to be careless in not avoiding the cyclist. The Judge said the evidence of the cyclist’s instability shortly beforehand concerned him, and he could not rule out the possibility that this instability continued until the time he was struck by the car.