AN OLD PROBLEM.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 28 April 1926, Page 2

AN OLD PROBLEM.

j>runk or sorer? MEDICAL EVIDENCE SUGGESTED. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT. CHRISTCHURCH, April 27. A suggestion coat til© police should place medical evidence beiore tlie court in a:l cases m wmen motorists were cnarged with, intoxication, was made by sir C. S. Thomas in the magistrate's i/ourt when ne appeared for a commercial traveller who pleaded not guilty to a cnarge of having driven a motor-car while in a state 01 intoxication. i n evidence lour police oiiicers said that the ‘defendant was intoxicated, three civilians said he was not, and a fourth was not sure about the matter. “The whole case/’ said Mr Thomas, may be summed up in the words •smelt of drink.’ ” Mr Thomas then addressed the magistrate (Mr H. A. l 7 oung, S.M.) : “lour Worship and otner magistrates in New Zealand are indicting severe penalties for this, offence. Yesterday a man was lined £IOO and others have gone to prison and these penalties are rightly imposed where there is no doubt about the case. The police are trying to be honest, but every man brought, in is pronounced drunk. The only way out is to have a medical man examine defendants immediately they are brought in. The first thing a man should be told at the police station as that helms the right to be examined by a doctor. J “Now, if your Worship goes to a friend’s house, has a- drink of whisky, and then becomes involved in an accident, you are liable to be sent to gaol by another magistrate just because four policemen came along to court. Tins man is in danger of suffering severely in a way that he may never get over That is the sort of tiling tlie people of New Zealand are up against to-day.