CAR ON FIRE

Greymouth Evening Star, 24 October 1945, Page 4

CAR ON FIRE

DRIVER INTOXICATED A motor-car driven by Colin Maurice White, 20, trucker, of , Blaketown, overturned and was destroyed by fire on the Omoto Road, near the racecourse, about 6.30 o’clock last evening. A passenger in the car, Bransby Thomas White, a member of the crew of the Kakapo, received concussion, a compound fracture of the left arm and laceration of the left ear. He was admitted to. the Grey Hospital and his condition was reported this afternoon to be improving. The other passenger in the car, George Clifford Tait, was not injured. A breakdown lorry was summoned, but the car could not be saved. As a result of the accident Colin Maurice White appeared in the Magistrate’s Court at Greymouth this morning charged that on October 23 he did drive a motor vehicle on the Omoto Road while in a state of intoxication. Defendant pleaded guilty. . Senior-Sergeant ■G. H. L. Holt said that shortly after 6 p.m. yesterday' Police Inspector Angland was driving his car from Dobson in the direction of Greymouth, and ’ just after leaving Dobson he. passed a car driven by defendant. Later the car driven by White passed the Inspector’s car at high speed, and then further along the road the Inspector came across defendant’s car upside down on the road and on fire. The driver was located and, as it was considered he was intoxicated, he was taken to the police station, where at 7 p.m. Dr. Andrae certified that defendant had been indulging in liquor but was then recovering. Gne oi the two passengers in the car received concussion and a fracture of an arm and was taken to hospital. Defendant, added the Senior Sergeant, was a trucker employed at the Rewanui State mine. He owned the car and was a licensed driver. Expenses totalled £l/18/-,- comprising £l/1/medical fee and 17/- for shifting the car. Defendant was convicted and fined £5, his license was cancelled for 12 months and he was ordered to pay £l/18/- expenses. Messrs M. J. Fogarty, J.P., and F. H. Denton, J.P., were on the Bench.