MOTORIST FINED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21935, 1 February 1946, Page 4

MOTORIST FINED

INTOXICATION CHARGE

LICENSE SUSPENDED

After pleading not guilty to a charge of having been intoxicated while in charge of a car, Robert McKenzie Haydon was convicted and fined £lO by ‘Messrs. M. Doyle and C. Blackburn, J.P.s, in the Gisborne Police Court yesterday. His motor driver’s license was suspended for the current period of registration.

Prosecuting, Senior-Sergeant G. S. Norris stated that the charge arose from an accident at Makaraka on Wednesday in which the accused was the driver and sole occupant of a motor car which crashed into a ditch.

Evidence by Constables G. Neal and G. C. Knox and Senior-Sergeant Norris was that the accused was driving along the main highway and when swerving to avoid a cyclist applied his brakes and went into a ditch. The accused when approached bv the police admitted having had considerable drink and gave outward signs of intoxication. Examined one hour 20 minutes later by a doctor, he was passed as being capable of driving a car. For the accused. Mr. E. T. Brosnahan stated that there were disrepancies in the police evidence. He submitted that the doctor’s classification of the accused as being capable of driving was part of the police evidence and should give the accused file benefit of the doubt. It was a border-line case and the accused was entitled to receive the benefit of any discrepancy in the evidence.