YOUNG WELLINGTON MAN FOR TRIAL

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 54, 26 November 1938, Page 12

YOUNG WELLINGTON MAN FOR TRIAL

Charges Of Intoxication And Causing Death

CAPSIZE OF MOTOR-VAN NEAR TAKAPAU

Dominion Special Service. WAH’UKURAU, November 25. Charged with being in control of a motor vehicle while in a slate of. intoxication and by an act ol omission causing the death of Harold Claude Russell, aged 161 years, a grocer's assistant, Wellington. Neil David McGoldrick. aged 21, grocer's assistant, Ibii.-iilai, Wellington, was committed fo~trial to Hie Supreme Court in Napier, when be appeared before Mr. .1. Miller, S.M., in the Magistrates’ Court, Waipukurau, today. The charge followed the arrest, of McGoldrick on October 22 after an accident at Wlieriuahou, near Takapau, when a delivery van he was driving left the road at a corner, throwing Russell, who was a passenger, on to lhe grass at the roadside.

The original charge of negligent driving causing death was withdrawn on the application of Detective-Sergeant 11. Nuttall, Napier, who conducted the case for the police. Mr. .1. A. Scott, Wellington, appeared for McGoldrick. An inquest into I lie death of Russell, adjourned from October 24, was resumed this morning and conducted in conjunction with the Court proceedings. The coroner, Mr. F. J. Adeane, returned a verdict that Russell died at Takapau on October 22 as the result of a fractured skull received through the overturning of a motor-van driven by McGoldrick in which he had been a passenger.. On the indictable charge the police called 13 witnesses, eight of whom were McGoldrick’s companions on the night of the tragedy. Dr. Ramond, Waipukurau, described Russell’s injuries. Death, which occurred before witness’s arrival, was due, he said, to a fracture of the skull.

During the morning Detective-Ser-geant Nuttall endeavoured to have two of his own witnesses whose evidence differed from their written statements to the police declared hostile; the magistrate said be was unwilling to take this course as the case would have to come up later in the Supreme Court. In the afternoon, however, one of the police witnesses was declared hostile. Mr. Scott did not address the Court, and said he would not call evidence. McGoldrick pleaded not guilty and was committed to the Supreme Court at its next-sitting in Napier, bail being renewed at two sureties of £250 each.