RESENTFUL MOTORIST

Evening Star, Issue 22684, 25 June 1937, Page 3

RESENTFUL MOTORIST

POLICE REMOVE IGNITION KEY DROVE IN DEFIANCE [Per United Press Association.] BLENHEIM, June 24. An unusual story concerning a Marlborough motorist who went to a garage in. the town to get his car, and upon learning that the ignition key had been removed by the police produced a duplicate key and drove the car away, was related in the Police Court to-day, when the motorist, whose name was suppressed, was convicted and fined £5 and costs by justices of the peace on a -charge of driving a car while in a state of intoxication. Sergeant Smyth stated that the key was removed on receipt of an anonymous message concerning the accused’s condition. The accused was subsequently arrested in the car while it was standing outside a shop. He was examined by two doctors, who agreed that he was affected by liquor. If the accused had taken the advice of the police there would have been no trouble, but he had acted in a pig-headed fashion. “ The sergeant is quite right. The accused had been pig-headed, or, rather, he is of the bulldog breed, and objected to the removal of the key of the car,” said counsel, who contended that it was a borderline case. The accused was actually on his way to the police station to seek an explanation of the removal of the key. Counsel claimed that fully 80 per cent, of the people leaving the clubs and hotels in Blenheim and 50 per cent, of those leaving dances were in a less fit state to drive a car than the defendant had been. Sergeant Smyth took exception to counsel’s remarks. “So far as Blenheim is concerned, we produce more drunken drivers than most other towns of the same size, and offenders haven’t come from hotels or clubs, either,” Sergeant Smyth said. “ A case of this kind is most unfortunate at the present time,” remarked counsel. “Justices of the Peace remember that the Bench has been hauled over the coals by Mr Semple, who has said that justices are tool lenient in these cases. I’ve known the defendant for many years, and can quite understand his manner when the key was taken away. Most other people would have done what he did.”