“DRUNK AT THE WHEEL”

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 261, 31 July 1929, Page 13

“DRUNK AT THE WHEEL”

A SOLICITOR FINED AND LICENSE SUSPENDED Lionel L’Estrange Edwards, a solicitor, aged 37, pleaded guilty before Mr. E. Page, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday to being drunk while in charge of a motor-car in Adelaide Road, on Monday afternoon. Sub-Inspector Lander stated that the accused collided with a stationary lighted car outside its owner’s residence shortly after 5 p.m. while driving along Adelaide Road. When the owner came out of the house he found Edwards drunk at the wheel of his (Edwards’s) car. Defendant was examined b.v a doctor lit the police station shortly after 6 p.m., and found to be intoxicated and unfit to be in charge of a car. Police officers who saw Edwards were also of the opinion that he was intoxicated. Accused was before the Court in Julv, 1927, when he wps fined £25 and had bis license cancelled for one y’ear on a similar charge. Mr. W. E. Leicester, who represented accused, said it was a disgrace that a member of his honourable profession, and a son of a distinguished man who had occupied the Bench for many years, should be before the Court on such a charge. It was nothing short of a calamity when he was before the Court a second time in such a charge. The defendant had been out driving with his mother and when he put his car into a garage to have it attended to he had a beer and a gin. which must have gone to his head. Accused was fined £35 and was suspended from driving a car for a period of three years.