NEGLIGENT DRIVING ALLEGED

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 255, 25 July 1935, Page 6

NEGLIGENT DRIVING ALLEGED

Motor Mechanic on Trial fOUNG MAN’S DEATH FROM SEVERE INJURIES 'The trial of Patrick Thomas Syron, motor mechanic, charged with negligently driving a motor-car, causing the death of Norman Alexander Anderson, began in the Wellington Supreme Court yesterday. The prosecution arises from an accident at the cornel of Willis and Willeston Streets a few minutes before 11 o’clock on the night of May 6. Anderson, who was aged 23, and a lorry-driver by occupation, was a visitor' from Waimatuku, near Invercargill. He was in the act of stepping on to the street to cross to the other side when he was struck by a motorcar and thrown against a veranda post. He received a compound fracture of the skull, and died in hospital the next day. The Crown alleges that the car, which did not stop, was being driven at an excessive speed. Accused, represented by Mr. R. L. A. Cresswell, pleaded not guilty. In his outline of the case, the Crown Prosecutor, Mr P. S. K. Macassey, said it was alleged that accused was driving his car along Lambton Quay into Willis Street. He had come from the direction of Featherston Street, and had just turned his car into ‘Willis Street when it collided with Anderson. The latter was taken to the hospital, where he died the following day. It -would be shown in evidence that accused was driving his car at an excessive speed. Some witnesses estimated he was travelling at from 30 to 35 miles an hour, but at any rate, the car was being driven at an excessive speed, so much so that when he came into Willis Street after passing the Bank of New Zealand he was unable to keep his car up to the tram rails. He was compelled to take a very wide sweep, which brought his car on the line with the footpath and struck the unfortunate man when he was standing about a foot from the footpath. “Particularly Callous.”

Anderson and his brother and two friends were walking along Willis Street on the harbour side, said Mr. Macassey. They were proceeding northward and when' they reached a point about 28 feet from Willeston Street they decided to cross over to the other side of the street. Before doing so they noticed the car coming along. Anderson was just stepping off the footpath, or bad just stepped on to the street about a foot or two feet at the outside, when the car came along at an excessive speed right up against the footpath. Anderson was hit with the front bumper. He was thrown against one of the veranda posts and then fell back on the bonnet of the car and subsequently on to the street. “Accused acted in a particularly callous way,” said Mr. Macassey. “He

knew he had struck a man. The windscreen of the car was broken. He never stopped. He proceeded up Willis Street and disappeared at such a speed that no one was able to get the number of bis car. We allege that he drove up and stopped his car in College Street and got out, and. that a friend who was in the car with him —this is the suggestion we make, we have no definite evidence—drove the ear out to Island Bay. It was parked in Lilley Street, which is some distance away from Clyde Street. “A Spot of Bother.” “We have definite evidence to show that, on the morning after the accident, accused telephoned a taxi-driver and met him at Courtenay Place. He told the taxi-driver that they were in a spot of bother and asked him to drive him out to Island Bay, where accused got out. He then got into the car he was driving the night before and drove as far as Houghton Bay, where he left it. He got back into the taxi and came into town. We he did that deliberately for the purpose of suppressing any evidence against him. “He rang up the police and told them his car had been stolen. He made two statements—a short one, first of all, reporting the loss of the car, and then, when he was interviewed in regard to the accident, he denied all knowledge of it and made out that he was that night at a picture show and afterward had supper at a cafe, and that then he had left his car outside his garage in Holland Street, from where it had disappeared.” Mr. Macassey said that accused had told the police a concoction of falsehoods, and it was only the day before the inquest, when he evidently knew that the taxi-driver had been interviewed by the police, that he attempted to change his statement.

Several witnesses gave evidence in support of the Crown’s case, which will be continued to-day.