WITHOUT LIGHTS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 23 July 1925, Page 4

WITHOUT LIGHTS.

CAR IN MORRISSEt STREET. DISMISSED WITHOUT CONVICTION. “I think that the polio should discriminate in such cases,” said Mr P. O’Dea when appearing in defence of E. J. Kirk, who appeared voluntarily at tlie Hawera Magistrate’, Court today to answer a charge of allowing a motor car to stand without lights in Morrissey street. Sergeant Henry said thai the car was discovered in Morrissey;stre©t at 10.15 on Sunday night last,! te owner having left it there instead o, putting it in the garage. In Morrisec street trees were planted along the sip of the road, and the car was standig between two of these trees. Kik had thought that the fact of the tree being there obviated any danger. The breach was a technical one. Th sergeant added that quite a numfer of people left cars on the outskirts f the town and thought they were not joing any harm. ' Mr O’Dea thought that th© prdecution was rather hard in such a ’ ise, and he contended that if the caryas required to display a light the t.?es should also be lighted.

The Magistrate said that a inn might know that the trees were always in the same place, but not eda car. However, he agreed that the' L fence was purely technical. v

Mr O’Dea said it seemed to him t lie a case where a prosecution shoul not be brought. He knew it was diffi cult to discriminate, but he thoughi that the police should discriminate. The Magistrate eaid he agreed that the case was only a technical one, and that it was far-fetched to consider that a motorist would swing in off the road and hit the car as it stood between the trees. However, he would not say that the police had not been justified in bringing the action. But the breach, was technical, and Kirk had exercised some discretion in parking the car, and also had put the country to no expense in bringing the action.

“On condition that the defendant, by reason of his position” (he is a reporter on The Star), “gives the proceedings due publicity,” added the Magistrate facetiously, “he will be discharged without conviction.”