CAR STRIKES CYCLIST

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 June 1937, Page 12

CAR STRIKES CYCLIST

MOTORIST COMMITTED. [FEB PRESS ASSOCIATION.] CHRISTCHURCH, June 7. Admissions of having had a quantity of drink prior to the accident, were made in a statement by the accused, produced in the Magistrates Couit, to-day, when Allan Mangels, labourer, aged 32, was charged before Mr. Lewy, S.M., with failing to stop and to render all practicable assistance after an accident involving injury to Clarence Herbert Richards. The accused was committed for. trial on this charge, and on one of negligently driving a motor-car, thereby causing bodily injury to Richards, on May 8. „ ,

Dr. F. W. Helmore, who was called after the accident, described grave injuries to the back and to the pelvis suffered by Richards. Richards had obviously been struck a severe blow in the back. Albert Cyril Loach said a boy cyclist and a car passed him on the road, both being on the correct side. The next thing, witness said, was a noise, apparently from the car, as if the driver was having trouble -with the gears. He turned round, and heard someone crying out. He walked out on the road, and, stooping, he saw a form outlined against the lights near a railway line. The car hesitated. Then it went on with a stream of sparks issuing from beneath it. He ran back, and.he picked,up .a car lamp near the intersection of ’the Junction and the Main South Roads, on the left side of the road, facing south. There was no glass in the lamp, but there was glass on the road. Someone was already attending to the boy. Cyril Desmond Smith said he was standing 100 yards from a corner along Junction Road, when he saw a car going past, making a lot of noise, with sparks coming from underneath. He heard a boy screaming. He got on his motor-cycle, and he chased the car west along the Main road, and he saw sparks come out from under it, some distance from the corner, when a bicycle dropped from under it. He was going about 30 to 35 miles an hour. He took the number of the car, but could not recall it. He had memorised the number, but he did not write it down.

Witness said, in cross examination, that it was about 20 minutes later that he saw a constable, and he got a man to write the number down for him. Kenneth Wilkin Banman said that he had been talking to Smith when they heard a grating noise from the Main Road. He estimated the speed of the car at abopt 35 miles an hour. He heard a scream, and he ran in the direction of the sound, and found the boy lying there. He picked the boy up, and carried him into a shop, where he waited until the doctor arrived. Smith, on his return, told him he had the number of the car. Smith was looking for a pencil, but he had none. He did not see anyone else take a note of the number.

James Stewart Morris, farmer, of Shand’s Road, said that, on the evening of the accident, he had seen a man outside the Islington Hotel. On the following Monday he was called to the police station to identify the man, and from .ten men he identified him as the prisoner.

Mangels showed signs of having had liquor when he was interviewed, about 11 p.m., said Constable Kearns. When Mangels’ car was examined, it was found to have one headlight missing and the left side of the radiator pushed back. Witness then read a statement made by Mangels, on the same evening, in which Mangels said that he had had “three handles of beer” in the afternoon. Later in his statement, Mangels said he had been drinking all the afternoon, and he must have been drunk, as he had no recollection of what direction he took after leaving the hptel. Obviously, the statement continued, he (Mangels) had been the only one driving his car at the time of the accident.

The evidence of the boy, Clarence Herbert Richards, a pupil of the Technical College, aged 13, was taken at Lewisham Hospital He stated that the lamp on his cycle was alight when he left home. Within ten yards of the railway line, he saw two lights coming up on each side -of him, and the car seemed to hit him. When he rolled over, he saw a lot of sparks coming from beneath the car. Bail was renewed in self £2OO, with one surety of £2OO.