ALCOHOL TESBS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 93, 21 April 1939, Page 11

ALCOHOL TESBS

SCOUTED BY MAGISTRATE

CERTIFICATE NOT EVIDENCE

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

HAMILTON, This .Day. Holding that a medical certificate in.-: a charge of intoxication preferred : against John Gibson Cook <29), motor..* driver, of Te Awamutu, was not cvi- , dence, the Magistrate, Mr. S. L. Pater* : son, dismissed the charge at the* Hamilton Police Court. . =, Intoxication was not a matter ot.. tests, said Mr. Paterson. The British^ Medical Association had expressed tha ■"- opinion that an experienced police officer was as capable of judging 4f ,a-----person was intoxicated as was any - medical officer, unless there were" pathological reasons for intoxication.' - It was on record that a man known)" to be intoxicated had pulled himselftogether for a medical test, passed it*., and then collapsed. He recalled a casein which a man was arrested for ; straight-out drunkenness. A doctof•"*■■ had certified him as sober, but during-.: the night the man was taken to hospital with alcoholic poisoning.; It was a further proof of the unreliable nature of tests for, intoxication;