DOMINION NEWS

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 October 1939, Page 2

DOMINION NEWS

[per press association.] ■\l ANS L AITGHTER CHARG E FA ILS. WELLINGTN. October 20. Without, retiring a jury in the- Supreme Court to-day returned a verdict of not guilty in a. case against Donald Nisbet, a truck driver. 26. charged with manslaughter. The case- was a sequel to an accident at Lyall Bay on the afternoon of July IS, when Shirley Ann Blackburn, aged five, lost her life, when struck by a lorry driven by Nisbet. Mr. Justice Blair said he was bound to say that the Crown had not presented a case which would entitle a jury to return a verdict, of guilty. THEFT OF MAIL BAGS WAIROA. October 20. A sequel to a fire at Morere early in the morning of October 1. when the store and post office were destroyed and mail bags stolen, was heard in the Wairoa Magistrate’s Court this afternoon, when Fred Ratoru Kirk, a Maori, 24, was charged with breaking and entering the store and stealing goods value at £B/7/6, and with stealing four mail-bags with intent to search them. Kirk pleaded guilty to both charges and was committed to the Supreme Court at Napier for sentence. In a statement to the police the accused denied that, he had any connection with the previous mail-bag robberies in thn district. NEGLIGENT DRIVING. CHRISTCHURCH. October 20. “I am quite convinced’ that you are the sort, of person who should not be in a car at all, said Mr. Justice North, croft to William Robert Conner, who appeared in the Supreme Court, this morning for sentence on a. charge of negligently driving a car, thereby causing the death of William Frederick Sopor. Conner was fined £25, to be paid in three months, his license was cancelled, and ho- was'disqualified from obtaining another for five years. The very necessity for the rule Conner had broken was created by indecent, intolerant drivers of the type he had shown himself to be, said his Honor. but in view of counsel’s representations, he would refrain from his original intention of imposing a prison sentence.