INTOXICATED DRIVER

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 132, 7 June 1939, Page 13

INTOXICATED DRIVER

TWO WEEKS IN GAOL

DROVE CAR WITH STEERING

LOCKED

For driving, while in an intoxicated state, a car which, according to police evidence.^ could not be steered, Peter William McAlpine Halswell Ell, a labourer, aged 27, who appeared before Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court.today, was convicted and sentenced to 14 days' imprisonment with hard labour. Ell, who was represented by Mr. I. Macarthur, in the absence "of Mr. J. S. Hanna, pleaded not guilty to the charge. On a further charge of unlawful conversion of a car valued at £240, he elected trial by jury, and the preliminary hearing was to have taken place this afternoon. A charge of mischief by wilfully damaging a blanket valued at ilOs also remains to be disposed of.

Constable C. Taylor, first . witness called by Sub-Inspector D. J. O'Neill, prosecuting, said that at 6.40 p.m. on Saturday he was standing at the corner of Stout Street and Lambton Quay when his attention was drawn to a car approaching along Stout Street with no lights burning, and travelling very slowly. He saw the car approach for about a chain, and then it stopped, the left hand front door opened, and the accused got out on to the pavement, closing the door. The accused walked towards witness, and he could see that he was intoxicated. Asked if he had been drinking, the accused said "yes," and said he had come from "around the corner." Witness accompanied the accused back to the car, and found that there was no one else in the car, or anyone about. The accused conversed quite freely on the way to the police station, but at the station he was surly, refused to give his name, and became rather offensive when the police started to search him.

In answer to Mr. Macarthur, witness said he was positive that there was nobody else in the car at the time.

The watch-house keeper, Constable C. Arnst, said that the accused would not give his name in English, but gave it in Maori. When Sub-Inspector O'Neill said to him, "I seem to know your face," the accused said, "Oh yes, I seem to know your's, too." Before Ell went to sleep he was whistling and shouting, and his actions we're those of a drunken man, IGNITION WIRES CUT. When he examined the car in Stout Street later on, said Constable B. G. Waller, he found that the ignition wires had been either cut or broken about half an inch from the switch. There was no key, but on joining the wires the car started readily. The steering gear was locked, and witness, who drove the car for a few yards, could not turn the wheel one way or the other. - Evidence was given by Reginald Dudley that he parked the car between 6.10 and 6.15 p.m. in Stout Street, and when he saw it again it was about 40 or 45 yards further down the street. When examined, the accused was in a state of mild intoxication, and in an excited condition stimulated by alcohol, said Dr. C. G. F. Morice. Giving evidence on his own behalf Ell said that on Saturday he and a friend left the football match together and went down town to a hotel, which they left a little after 6 p.m. He went to the station with his friend, saw him off, and walked slowly from the station down Stout Street.' At the corner a constable stopped him and asked him Jf he drove up in the car. Witness said "No," and the constable said, "I saw you get out of it." Witness later agreed to go to the station, where one thing led to another, and "things got a bit funny." He did not enter the car; he did not shift it, and he did not tamper with the ignition wires, "It seems to be common ground that the accused had had a certain amount of liquor that afternoon," said Mr. Macarthur. "He admits it himself, and Dr. Morice says in evidence that he was in>.a state of mild intoxication, and he said it was just a state of excitement stimulated by alcohol. But there is a great deal of difference between the case of a man who is intoxicated and the case of a man who is charged with being in charge of a car in that state, and the proof that this man was, at any time, in charge of a motor vehicle while in that state is extremely flimsy." Referring to the locked steering, counsel submitted that even if the car was, at any stage, in . charge of the accused, it could not possibly have done any damage, because it could not be steered. The Magistrate: It could probably do more damage. Counsel submitted that the case was one which was quite removed from the serious kind of .case that came before the Court.