PRISON FOR JOCKEY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22405, 12 August 1947, Page 4

PRISON FOR JOCKEY

SEQUEL TO ACCIDENT COMMENTS BY JUDGE (P.A.) ' NAPIER, Aug. 12. A sentence of four months’ hard labour was imposed by Mr. Justice Smith on Aubrey Midwood, aged 2G, jockey, Palmerston North, who was found guilty on a charge of failing to stop after an accident. The judge also suspended Midwood’s driving license and disqualified him from obtaining another for three yeprs. “Notwithstanding your counsel's plea I find little excuse for your conduct,” said the judge. “I am quite satisfied from the evidence and from the admissions in your own statement to the police that you were under the influence of liquor at the time of the collision. “It is true that you are not charged with being intoxicated while in charge of a motor-car, but if you had been examined that evening, this charge might easily have been laid. Instead of reporting the collision to the police you maintained a continuous silence. “An obligation to report was upon you, not upon the girl who was a passenger. About a year after the accident the girl, not you, reported to the police and, whatever the state of the engagement between the two of you at the time, she is entitled to the credit of bringing your part in this collision to the light of day. “But for her it does not appear that the facts would ever have been disclosed. In view of this the case is a bad one.”