INTOXICATED DRIVER

Evening Star, Issue 22722, 9 August 1937, Page 11

INTOXICATED DRIVER

THREE WEEKS’ IMPRISONMENT LICENSE SUSPENDED FOR TWO YEARS “ The accused was convicted in 1936 on a charge of being intoxicated in a car and on that occasion was dealt with leniently. A man who comes up a second time on a charge of this nature deserves no consideration whatever,” said Mr H. W. Bundle, S.M., in the Police Court this morning in sentencing John Jesse Woodford (29), a man on sustenance, to three weeks’ imprisonment and suspending his driving license for two years. Woodford pleaded guilty. Senior-sergeant Packer said that at 8.15 on the night of July 31 a traffic inspector saw Woodford swerve badly and run into a verandah pole in Playfair street, Caversham. He was taken to the Police Station, where Dr Harty certified that he was not in a fit condition to be driving. There were road excavations being carried out in Playfair street, and Woodford, who was in a truck, narrowly missed driving into them. He was last before the court in 1936 on a similar charge. Mr L. R. Simpson, who represented Woodford, said that it was not a case of a man being badly intoxicated, nor of a man on sustenance mis-spending his money on liquor. Woodford had met some friends, who were in town for the week-end, and accepted an invitation to go to an evening with’them. While he was there he had some liquor, and was on his way home when he was arrested. His homo was actually only a few hundred yards away. Woodford said that he was pulling in to a fish shop and had to swerve to avoid the excavations. He struck the post with the mudguard of the truck. He was a married man, on sustenance, and had a child seven weeks old.

The Magistrate: What was the necessity for a man on sustenance, or any man for that matter, to take a truck on such an occasion?

Mr Simpson: He had used it to go to South Dunedin. I understand he was assisting his father in the latter’s business.