TELEGRAMS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 2, 2 July 1913, Page 3

TELEGRAMS

WAS THE CAR STARTED TOO SOON? UNUSUAL PROSECUTION. [b* telegraph— special to th» post.] AUCKLAND, This Day. An unusual case was heard in the Police Court yesterday, a trajn-cav conductor being charged with having caused a- car to start before a woman who was an intending passenger had taken bar seat insidd. The prosecution was instituted by the police, who produced evidence by the woman concerned and three other witness that she had lifted a little child on to the step at the rear platform and had one foot on the step herself when the car started, and she fell on the road. For the defence the motorman stated that before starting the car he looked back and did rot see anyone at the rear platform. The conductor had relied on the motorman to watch the rear platform, and gave the starting signal when he heard the driver's gong. The other witness was a male passenger, who considered that he was the last man in. The car moved, he said, while he was on the step, and he did not see anyone else waiting then. When he got on the platform he heard a call that sounded like "Wait a minute!" and he turned to see the child standing on the step and Mrs. Mdrpeth with her hands out as if she had just <put the little girl there. He caught hold of the child as the woman let go, and she herself fell down on the road. He thought there were two other women there, but he could not say from where they had come. - Mr. E. C. Cutten, S.M., reserved judgment in order to consider the bylaw.