HIT-AND-RUN CHARGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIX, Issue 34, 9 February 1940, Page 4

HIT-AND-RUN CHARGE

MOTORIST ACQUITTED

A retirement of only five minutes was sufficient for a jury in the Supreme Court yesterday afternoon to find John Joseph Birt, a plumber, aged 43, not guilty of failing to stop after an accident. The accused's car collided with a taxi near the intersection of Taranaki and Buckle Streets on October 25, 1939.

Mr. Justice Ostler presided. Mr. W. H. Cunningham appeared for the Crown, and Mr. W. P. Pringle for the accused.

The Crown Prosecutor said Birt was charged under the "hit-and-run" section of the Motor Vehicles Amendment Act, 1936, which imposed a strict duty on motorists. The offence alleged did not happen to be a serious one, as if the driver had run away after injuring somebody. The evidence would show that there was a quite sharp collision between the front wheels of the two vehicles, in which, a hub cap was lost off each car, and the charge was that he failed to stop promptly after the accident and go back to find out what exactly had happened. After the collision the taxi driver immediately turned- in the intersection to go back to the other car, but it had gone over the rise in Bxkle Street and disappeared."" The taxi driver chased a car up Tasman Street, but found it was the wrong one. The driver, however, was able to supply the number of the car involved in the accident.

The defence was that the accused had stopped beyond the rise in the street because of a defect in the car which made starting on a grade difficult. He had seen no other car after stopping and had continued home.

The prisoner was discharged