DEATHS IN COLLISION

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIV, Issue 3242, 13 December 1930, Page 5

DEATHS IN COLLISION

CASE AGAINST STOREY. NEW TRIAL ORDERED. Wellington, this day. The Appeal Court to day delivered judgment in the case of the Crown versus Storey, held on October 16, to the effect that there should be a new trial at the nextt sitting of the Supreme Court at Wellington.

The Court of Appeal heard argumen on October 16 on the question of law reserved for argument in the Court of Appeal in the case Rex v. Alfred Edward Storey, of Wellington, sales manager, which was heard at the last criminal sessions of the Supreme Court. Storey was charged that on April 13, 1930, on Ngahauranga Gorge Road, by negligently driving a motor-car, he did kill Violet Amelia Cook and Norman Webb Cook, thereby committing manslaughter, or alternatively, that by so driving he did cause the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Cook. At the conclusion of the case for the Crown counsel for the accused submitted that there was no case to go to the jury. The Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, overruled this contention. Counsel, in cross-examination, also sought to ask questions with the view of setting up the defence of contributory negligence on the part of the deceased, Norman Cook, by showing that the braking on deceased’s car was defective and that there was a pin loose in the steering gear of deceased’s car. He also sought to adduce evidence that the terrain at the spot where deceased’s car went over a bank was inclined to be loose and that this might have contributed to the ultimate cause of the accident. The Chief Justice, however, in disallowing such cross-examination and evidence, ruled that if the collision was caused by the negligent driving of the accused, nothing that immediately followed, nor any contributory negligence on the part of deceased prior to the collision, would afford a defence to the charges unless it could he shown that there was some entirely new factor which brought about the death of the two deceased, and with which accused had nothing to do.