“HIT AND RUN” CHARGE

Kaikoura Star, Volume LVI, Issue 87, 5 November 1936, Page 4

“HIT AND RUN” CHARGE

GIRL’S STORY OF ACCIDENT INVERCARGILL, October 30. A story of the finding of a dead body beside a wrecked motor-cycle on thci main road near Woodlands on October 22 was related in the Magistrate’s Court to-day. when a “hit and run” allegation was made against a truckdriver who faced two indictable counts. The accused was Charles Michaol Hughes, of Gore, and he was charged with negligent driving causing death, and with failing to give all practicable assistance to a person hurt in an accident. The motor-cyclist who was killed was William George Scddon Parker, of Mataura. It was stated in evidence by a girl aged 16, who name was suppressed, that she had been a passenger with the accused in the truck on the night of the accident. Near Woodlands they saw a motor-cycle approaching. The truck was travelling on its correct side, and the motor-cycle would be nearer the ■middle of the road. She did not know anything had happened until she heard the roar of the motor-cycle. She looked through the window and saw spanks from the motor-cycle. She could, not say whether cither vehicle swerved after the impact. The motor-cycle was on the right side going to Invercargill. She got out of the truck and ran back and saw a man lying on the left side of the road. Hughes was driving the truck at the time, and he did not say anything to her when he stopped the truck. Parker’s head was on the left side of the road, with his legs pointing to the motor-cycle, which was on the road. The engine was still roaring, and

Hughes stopped it. They ran back to the truck and went away to Dipton, said the witness. Before they left, she told the accused that it would be best to report the matter and he said: “If you do that I’ll get five years.” The accused told her to toll anybody who asked questions that they were on the Kelvin road instead of the cast road, and that they were to attend a dance at Winton. Neither she nor the accused looked at the lorry. They wont to Dipton and both stayed the night there. Next morning they went on to Gore, arriving about 11.30 a.m. On the way back from Dipton they called at Donald Macdonald’s at Gore, where the accused left, the truck. The accused later told her that he had ’ changed trucks with his partner, and told her the difference between those trucks. He said one had white on it and the other had not. Nineteen other witnesses for the prosecution gave evidence. The accused pleaded not guilty to each charge, and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial. Bail was refused. The Royal Commission on the manufacture of and trade in arms, under the chairmanship of Sir John Bankes, unanimously recommended that as the establishment of a universal State monopoly in arms manufacture is impracticable, the abolition of the private armaments industry in Britain, is undesirable. The commission points out the extent to which governments are using the manufacture of arms to cure unemployment. “Their fear of the consequences if they demob olisc such labour is a new and serious obstacle to a reduction of armanienits. ’ ’