NEGLIGENCE, CAUSING DEATH

Evening Star, Issue 22953, 10 May 1938, Page 13

NEGLIGENCE, CAUSING DEATH

CHARGE AGAINST MOTORIST [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, May 9. A fatal motor accident at Tauherenikau on the afternoon of Saturday, February 12, was the basis of a charge in the Supreme Court to-day against William Robert Thomson, aged 48, a cordial factory employee. Thomson, who stood his trial before Mr Justice Reed and a jury, pleaded not guilty to a charge of negligently driving a motor truck, thereby causing the death of Thomas Cudlip.

The Crown Prosecutor (Mr W. H. Cunningham), outlining the case, said , that about 4.20 p.m. on Saturday, February 12, the police were called to the southern approach to a bridge over the Tauherenikau River, on the main highway about a mile or two out of Featherston. There they found a truck belonging to a Featherston cordial factory, where the accused .worked, down a bank on the south side of the river. It was obvious that the truck had run into one of the approaches to thf bridge. At the scene of the accident were the accused, another man and the deceased Cudlip, who had received fatal head injuries. The evidence for the Crown, Mr Cunningham continued, would be that the accused had admitted being the driver, and that he had had drink, though a doctor would say that he was not unfit to drive. The accused’s explanation was that a green sedan car had come off the bridge at a fairly fast pace and on its wrong side, as he approached the bridge, and that had caused him to swerve suddenly into the guard rail of the approach and go down the bank. The other man in the cab besides the accused and Cudlip would say that he did not see any motor vehicle coming off the bridge. Two other witnesses in the vicinity at the time saw no such car as was described by the accused, and exhaustive inquiries and publicity had not revealed the existence of .such a car There was no doubt that between lunch time and 4 p.m. the accused had spent a considerable time in an hotel, and he admitted to one person having had four “ shandies,” and to another having -had five glasses of beer. . The Crown’s case had concluded, and the case for the defence had opened when the case was adjourned till to-morrow.