DRUNK IN A CAR

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 4, 5 July 1926, Page 11

DRUNK IN A CAR

TAXI-DRIVER SENT TO PRISON.

(By Telegraph.) (Special to the "Evening Post.") AUCKLAND, This Day. A- few weeks ago, Mr. Poynton, 5.M.,. in fining an intoxicated motorist, intimated his intention of inflicting imprisonment in future. This morning, following that warning, Austin Gilbert Durban (50), a taxi-driver, wfts sentenced to Seven days' imprisonment on a charge of being in a state of intoxication while driving a motor-car on the New North road, Kingsland. Ivan Andrew, a motor dealer, said that a few minutes before midnight on 26th June he was driving a motor-car, and was turning into New North road when he observed the car driven by 'the accused about 100 yards away. Proceeding along tho main road, he folt a bump, and on pulling up found that Durban's car had crashed into tho rear of his vehicle, practically at right-angles. The accused was sitting in the car. Shortly afterwards a tram approached and struck the side of Durban's car. Durban then drove over, tho footpath into a Vacant Section. Witness called on the accused to stop, but ho continued down the section until he struck a kerbstone, which finally pulled him up. Andrew said ho smelt liquor on the accused, and thought he was not in a fit state to drive a car. One of the rear wheels of witness's car was broken off, a mudguard was damaged, and the back axle was bent.

A constable said he found the accused leaning against his car on a vacant section. Durban was unsteady on his legs and was under the influence of liquor, and in such a state that he would have been arrested for drunkenness without his being in charge of a car. On tho way to the lock-up the accused told witness ho had four whiskies, but on arrival at the police station he said he had taken two boors and two gins. Mr. L. P. Leary, for tho accused; "Was his condition liko that of a man who had merely mixed his drinks, or like that of a man who had been drinking all day?" Mr. Poynton: '' Can a constable make such a diagnosis?" The constablo replied that Durban appeared to bo a clean-living man who ha« merely overstepped tho mark. Mr. Leary said that, examining the whole of tho evidence, the matter seemed to bo ono of pure indiscretion, and made a plea that tho offence would be its own punishment. Mr. Poynton observed: "That is rather risky," but as it was not a bad case he would not endorse the driving license, owing to tho driving of the car being the man's means of livelihood.