ILLEGALLY OBTAINED

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 47, 24 February 1934, Page 17

ILLEGALLY OBTAINED

EPILEPTIC WITH LICENCE

DEATH OF FOUR MEN

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDOST, January .19. Ou October 7/1933, a car crashed, into a crowd outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, killing four men. The £"/"" .of tMs car was charged at the) Old Bailey with manslaughter. He was also charged with.- causing grievous1 bodily harm to Aircraftsman Squibb, and making a false statement to obtain a am ing licence, namely, that he aid not suffer from epilepsy. The prosecution suggested that the accident the result of an cpi l cp tic fit and that Hills had a history of epilepsy going back to 1926 Di W. R. Brain, of Harley Street, a specialist in nenous diseases, called tor tho defence, said that Hills -was now subject to epilepsy, and there -uas no qu.e I sVu 11 °f au} euro at Pioscnt. Ho siiul that a man in an epileptic fit -would

havo no control over a car. He was completely unconscious. ' Counsel. An attack may como on without any warning? Dr. Brain: Therb is no warning in a httle over half of tho cases. Counsel for tho prosecution said the last thing he wished to do was to prcss> the chaige of manslaughter. Mi Justice Chailes, passing sentence, said that ho regarded it as a vcTy sen ous case.

"Although, quite properly, tho manslaughter charges have not been pursued," ho "-aid to Hills, "jou wero a potential danger ,pn tho .road whenever you went out, and you would not have been on the load at all unless \ou had made these false statements. I cannot overlook it, and I must visit on jou a short term of imprisonment. You will go to pnson for three months in the second division, and jour licence will be endorsed and suspended for life."