CHARGE DISMISSED

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 175, 9 July 1932, Page 8

CHARGE DISMISSED

SEQUEL TO FATAL ACCIDENT MAGISTRATE ACQUITS NURSE Wellington, July 8. Expressing the opinion that no jury would convict on the evidence brought forward by the prosecution, Mr E. Page, S.M., in the Police Court to-day dismissed a charge against Gwen Adelaide Dryden, a nurse at the Public Hospital, of negligently driving a motor-car so as to cause the death of Mrs Euphemia Donaldson Stanton. When the case was resumed further evidence for the defence was heard. Burn Stanley Bland, driver of the Wellington Hospital wagon, said that he was in Adelaide road on May 4 near the Brown street tram stop. He had had to pull up when Mrs Stanton stepped off the footpath. She stepped back, and he moved off again. He had not gone far when he heard a scream, and, looking round, saw Miss Dryden’s car ou the footpath. He turned back and found that Mrs Stanton had bee* killed. The Magistrate said that the evidence showed that, while the accused was driving her car up Adelaide road, just beyond the tram stop and just after having passed a tram she knocked down a woman. There was some conflict in the evidence as to whether the stop of the tram was the normal stop or a late stop. “I think the inference is that in her anxiety to catch the tram the woman may not have been fully observant of the other traffic,” said the Magistrate. “The accused was driving on the pro per side of the road, and I don’t think the evidence establishes that she was driving at an undue speed. To justify committal there must be reasonable evidence of criminal negligence on the part of the accused.”