KILLED BY CAR

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXII, Issue 12476, 12 February 1935, Page 4

KILLED BY CAR

WAS THE .VICTIM 1 DRUNK ?

CHARGE OP NEGLIGENT DRIVING. WHAT ACCUSED TOLH

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WELLINGTON, Feb.' ll.'

. Evidence, in support of .the prosecution of John Stewart, charged with negligently driving a motor car on the ftJasterton-G’arterton road at Clare-

villo on November 30, thereby causing the dcatli of Thomas Lacy was heard in the Supreme Court to-day. Mr. S. \ r . Gooding, who appeared-for the accused, outlined the defence before the court adjourned until tomorrow. The Chief Justice (Sir AI.

Myers) was on the bench and Air. p. S. K. Alacassey, Crown Prosecutor, conducted the prosecution. Leonard Arthur Daysh, employed by ,tiie Grey town Cheese Factory, said that he left Alasterton at 10.20 p.m. for Carterton oh his motor cycle. Two or three miles from Carterton, he riiet. a man in a dark suit, who put up hjs hand for witness to stop. The man was ori his left and did not appear to.be drunk. About a quarter of a mile further on, he met a car going in the same direction as theW man .at Carterton. He expected to * meet the driver of a bus. that was to have left Alasterton about the same time as himself and. when it did not arrive, be returned along the road and found that it had stopped alongside a man lying on the road whom witness thought was the man he had seen walking. Vincent Claude Andrews, driver of the bus, said that he found a man ly-

ing on the grass at the side of the road with his feet just on the metal, of which there was a breadth of several feet between - the grass and the pavement. He was . bleeding from a wound on. the - temple and complained of pain in the groin. Before the discovery of the man, the bus had passed a touring car with odd headlamps, going toward Alasterton. A deposition by? Dr. A. Hoskin that the injured man died 23 hours after admission to hospital from shock and peritonitis was read. Hie injuries, consistent with his being knocked down by a motor car, were described and the doctor said that Lacey's eyesight was subnormal. Henry James Flynn said that he rode in a car driven by Stewart and another man from Taratahi hotel to the Royal Oak Hotel. There they had drinks and departed with liquor. All appeared to witness to be sober. Stewart drove the car towards Alas- i terton along ■ the -main road until ” they turned down a road that he thought was near a boundary road. .Before the.car turned off the main road, witness said that he saw a form for a glimple, thinking it was somebody on a hicyc-le. Mat ness thought the car missed him and they drove on. He was sitting behind the driver and the man on the road was on the left. He felt a slight brush or bump. Witness turned round and thought they had missed him and remarked that the man was very lucky or deserved to be hilled or something to that effect. . « Detective F. N. Rohinsoir laid the accused, when first interviewed, made a statement denying his part in the casualty but. later, made a now one which was that a man suddenly stepped out on the road and was struck by the side of tlic car. He started to pull up, hut the other occupants of the car called out to him to go on, one saying, “Get out of it as fast as you can.” He would not have turned off the main road it he had not been told to do so. because the police would lie coming down the main road later. He had intended going ~o the police, but saw nothing about the accident iu the newspapers and concluded that the man was not seriously hurt. Then he found that the victim had died arid he became afraid. Outlining the defence, which die jury will hear to-morrow, Air. Gooding said that the accused would give evidence himself that Lacey suddenly® staggered into the road in front ol the car. Evidence would be given by those who had known Lacy to show that he was an exceedingly shortsighted man and of awkward gait and that, before he was knocked down, he had been very drunk. Drivers of other vehicles that had passed along the road where the accident happened would tell how they had narrowly missed knocking down a man who had run out on the road.