ON THREE COUNTS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20861, 13 August 1942, Page 2

ON THREE COUNTS

VERDICTS OF GUILTY MERCY RECOMMENDED TE KARAKA ACCIDENT Verdicts of not guilty on the negligent driving charges, but guilty on the three others, were returned by the jury in the Supreme Court in Gisborne yesterday afternoon, when Wallace Edwin Reeve and James Arthur Third, two soldiers, stood their trial before Mr. Justice Johnston. The jury made a strong recommendation for mercy. Both pleaded guilty to the unlawful conversion of a motor car and not guilty to a joint charge of being involved in an accident under such circumstances that they would have been guilty of manslaughter if death had been caused, and also not guilty on separate charges of negligent driving causing injury to Thomas Hall, an invalid, and of failing to stop after an accident. His Honour said he would take the jury’s recommendation into account when .sentencing the prisoners. The jury was out for about an hour and a quarter. During the trial, the accused Third was represented by Mr. L. T. Burnard. with him Mr. D. W. lies, while Mr. A. A. Whitehead appeared for Reeve. The Crown prosecutor, Mr, F. W. Nolan, did not address the jury, and following Mr. Burnard’s submissions Mr. Whitehead addressed the -jury. Mr. Whitehead said that one or the other of the accused was driving the car, but if the jury found Third not guilty it did not necessarily mean that Reeve was guilty. Reeve admitted that he drove the car as far as Waerenga-a-hika. tout said that after that Third asked to drive. Third, however, had said he could not drive a car. Therefore, if Third could drive it was probable that he could not do so very well. Also, Third had said that after the accident he had “got the wind up,” a most likely assumption if he were driving at the time. Counsel submitted that there was insufficient evidence against Reeve to identify him as the driver of the car. His Honour’s Summing- Up. His Honour, in his address to the jury, said that when the two accused set out on their journey they were criminals and they were in pursuit of a common .design, if there was a common .design, which was to put the car on to' the road and drive it. If so, was the law to be entirely at the mercy of persons causing injury by both denying negligence? The real evidence was not in dispute. What was in dispute was the divergent story of the two accused as to who was driving. It was admitted that the two men converted the car, which ran into Hall in his chair and caused injuries to him. The jury should have no difficulty in coming to a conclusion that the accident was caused by negligent driving. There was no evidence, apart from Reeve’s, that Third was ever at the wheel. There was no doubt that they failed to stop, and the jury might find that either or both were negligent and failed to stop. Questions of law raised by the defence were reserved.