VAN STRIKES MAN

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 3, 3 July 1941, Page 6

VAN STRIKES MAN

DRIVER FOR SENTENCE

Pleading guilty in the Magistrate's Court yesterday afternoon, before Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., to having negligently driven a motor-van on Aotea Quay on the night of June 21, thereby causing the death of John Te Anau, and guilty to having failed to stop after an accident, Claude Stafford Rusher, aged 58, a cook,- was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence. Rusher was. represented :by Mr. A. J. Mazengarb. Bail .was allowed in the sum of £100, with a surety of £100.

Witnesses for the "Crown said that about 7 p.m. oh Saturday, June 21, Te Anau, who was engaged on drainage work near the military hospital in Aotea Quay, was standing by the side of the road when he was hit by a vehicle and rendered unconscious. Lighting and visibility were good. He was taken to hospital with severe head injuries and fractured ribs, and he died on June 26 from pneumococcal meningitis. Hairs found on Rusher's van resembled those from Te Anau's left eyebrow.

A.. Crown witness, Henry Hunter Graham, a carpenter, said that Rusher approached him in the city after 6 p.m. on June 21. He did not think Rusher was sober, and because of Rusher's intoxicated condition' he at first refused an offer to be driven <<iome to Ngaio, but he eventually got Into the van with Rusher, "who drove along Waterloo Quay on »the wjrong side of the road, but after a "warning by the witness, drove along Aotea" Quay well on the left side of the road.

The witness said he saw a man standing in front of the car and he warned the accused, but the van struck the man.

The speed of the car was about 20 to 25 miles an hour, Graham told the Court. Rusher would not stop until he reached the Kaiwarra Gorge, when Graham got out and telephoned the police.

Leonard William Simpson, a storeman, said that Rusher did not appear to be sober at about 6 p.m. on June 21.

Detective L. A. Smith said that Rusher told him on June 22 that he had been driving along Aotea Quay the night before when he felt a "bit of a bump," but took no notice of it, thinking he had hit a post. He said he was alone at the time and had no idea he had hit a. man.