GAOL SENTENCES

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 154, 28 December 1936, Page 9

GAOL SENTENCES

SEQU€L TO COLLISIONS

I After colliding with another car and Ja bridge on the way down from Wairarapa,: ■ two men. were arrested on Saturday: afternoon and appeared before Mr. W. F. Stilwell, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court today. Ronald ■ Kenneth Stuart pleaded guil.ty to being intoxicated in charge of a car on December 26 on the Main Road in the Taita Gorge, and to driving without a licence, and Leslie William' Le Roy Driver, a linotypist, aged 37, pleaded guilty to being intoxicated in charge. Sub-Inspector J. A. Dempsey said that Stuart had not been before the Court before, but on December 14 Driver had been convicted of a similar offence and sentenced to seven days' imprisonment. On the afternoon of December <Jt>, said the sub-inspector, the police received a message from Featherston. The two men were driving down from Wairarapa. At about 2 p.m. they collided with a car being driven from Wellington, about three-quarters of a mile from the summit of the Rimutakas. According to the driver of the other car, the car in which the two accused were was definitely on its wrong side. After the collision, it went across the road, struck the bank, and stopped. Driver gave his cor^ re'ct name and address, and offered to pay for the damage. The other driver, however, informed the police of the men's condition. At 4.40 p.m., another motorist following the accused's car south saw it crash into the Taita Bridge. When the police arrived, Driver was in the driver's seat, and Stuart was asleep. When awakened, however, he said he was in charge of the car: "One cannot help but. take cognisance of the fact that you committed a similar offence a fortnight ago," said the Magistrate, addressing Driver. "I am afraid there is nothing to be said in your favour." The accused was sentenced to a month's imprisonment, his licence was endorsed andi cancelled, and he was declared unfit to obtain another for a period of twelve months. Stuart was sentenced to fourteen days' imprisonment, and was declared unfit to obtain a licence for twelve months.