INTOXICATED DRIVER

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 34, 9 August 1943, Page 3

INTOXICATED DRIVER

A fine of £25 was imposed by Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrate's Court today on Patrick Arthur Townsend, an Air Force officer, 33, whom he convicted of being intoxicated in charge of a motor-car in Murphy Street on Friday. It was stated that the car he was driving collided with another car at the corner of Murphy Street and Pipitea Street. The defendant, who denied being intoxicated, said in evidence that he had had six glasses of beer between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. He was not used to the car he was driving and had his foot on the brake, but when he saw the other car his foot slipped off the brake and on to the accelerator. He had been three years overseas attached to the R.A.F., and had been on tour of operations, and was now on sick leave. A cartilage had been removed from his leg a little over a month ago.

Mr. N. T. Gillespie, for the defendant, said Townsend had been in more than 30 operational flights over Germany and the Continent as an ob-server-navigator, and had returned to New Zealand for rest, duty, and attention to his leg. Whatever penalty the Court imposed would be only part of the penalty, because no doubt he would have to appear before his commanding officer.

The Magistrate said he saw no reason why the defendant should be treated any differently from any other person driving a car.

The defendant was disqualified from obtaining a licence for twelve months.