DANGEROUS DRIVING

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20139, 8 January 1940, Page 8

DANGEROUS DRIVING

WOMAN BEFORE COURT EVIDENCE OF DRINKING FINES IMPOSED | Lengthy evidence was heard in the ! Police Court to-day in a case in which ; Mrs. Margaret Ann Edwards was j charged with driving a car in a dangerous manner and with operating a vehicle without a license. Mr. E. L. Walton, S.M., convicted the defendant and fined her £2 and costs 19s on the first charge, and 5s and costs 10s on the second. Mr. A. A. Whitehead appeared for the defendant. I Outlining the case for the prosecuI tion. Senior-Sergeant J. F. H. Macnamara said that a complaint had been | received at 5.50 p.m. on January 2 ! that an intoxicated person was driving j a car that had been parked in Lyndhurst street. Constable Stewart went to the house and learned that the defendant had been the driver and was in an advanced state of intoxication. A cousin, John Michael Cannody, Taumarunui, had been with her giving her a lesson in driving when the alleged dangerous driving occurred. Condition of Defendant The constable said he heard the defendant say that she had had several drinks. At 7.15 p.m. she had been examined by Dr. H. Angell and a certificate was issued to the effect that the quantity of liquor consumed would not render her unfit to drive a car. The defendant had been a patient of the doctor’s for some time and was known to him to be neurotic. The offences were committed when the defendant and her cousin were returning from a visit to the Albion Hotel. Pastor Lyndon Raymond Usmar gave evidence as to the condition of the defendant when she alighted from the car in Lyndhurst street, and two cyclists, Mesdames Winifred Slade and Mavis Nunns, related what they saw ;of the erractic course taken by the vehicle after it passed very close to Mrs, Slade. Constable Stewart and Senior-Sergeant Macnamara also gave : evidence. Defendant’s Explanation

The defendant said she- and her cousin, who had never been to Gisborne before, were visiting her sister in Lyndhurst street on the afternoon of January 2. They wanted some drink for a party that was to be held in the house and she and. her co vin had gone to the Albion Hotel. They had one drink there and she could not think what the complaints had been about. They were not slouching together at any period and the defendant said she was driving without any assistance from Cannody. He was not leaning across her and steering while she was sitting behind the driving wheel. When they returned to Lyndhurst street her oisfer ward out to file car and accidentally knocked the defendant, causing her to partially collapse and require assistance into the Louse.

A charge against Carrnody of aiding and abetting the previous defendant in the commission of an offence of dangerous driving was adjourned until January 22.