STRUCK BY CAR

Northern Advocate, 15 June 1935, Page 10

STRUCK BY CAR

DEATH OF PEDESTRIAN | SPEEDING ALLEGED. TESTIMONY AT INQUEST. [Per Press Association. — Copyright J WELLINGTON, This Day. An inquest was commenced today regarding the death, in hospital, of Norman Anderson, of Waimatuku, near Invercargill, who was struck by a motor car at the corner of Willis and Willeston Streets, Wellington, about 10.40 p.m. on May 6. Evidence was given by eye-witnesses that the car was travelling at a high rate of speed and did not stop. Patrick Thomas Syron, driver of the car, said there were three passengers in the car. He approached the intersection at a speed of 15 to 20 miles per hour. He pulled towards the centre of the road, to avoid a stationary car. Something struck the windscreen and broke the glass. He pulled at the brake, but a person sitting beside him said he thought it was all right. Witness looked back, but could not see anything, and he continued up Willis Street. When the sub-inspector of police asked at this stage where witness went, counsel for Syron objected to any further questioning. He said that the only duty of the coroner was to ascertain the manner of death. The coroner said he thought that the question as to where Syron went might have a bearing on the inquiry, and the questions were continued. Syron said he left the car in College Street, five or ten minutes’ walk from his home, as he did not want his people to see that the windscreen was broken. After the accident, one of his passengers said: “You have hit a man; go for your life.” As a result of what he was told, he continued on. The next time he saw the car was at the police station. He did not know that it had been found at Houghton Bay. N The Sub-Inspector: “Have you any idea how it got there?” Witness: “I do not wish to answer that. I might incriminate someone else.”

“It is not that you might incriminate yourself in any way? It is that you might’implicate others?” —“Yes.” The Sub-Inspector: “Well, you have to answer it now.” Mr Stewart (counsel for Syron): “It is a deliberate trap.” The coroner said the witness need hot answer the question. After further questioning, the witness said he admitted he was driving the car at the time of the accident. Mr Stewart said there was nothing else required for the purpose of the inquest. ■ The coroner: “What about sobriety?” Mr Stewart said that had nothing to do with the inquiry. The tracing of witness’s movements throughout the evening bad no bearing on the inquest. The coroner said he would like to know if witness had been drinking before the accident. If he was sober, it might have been purely an accident. Continuing his evidence, Syron said he had had three drinks between 5.30 and 6 p.m.

In reply to further questions, witness said he did not know that Anderson was dead until 5 p.m. next day. He did not report the accident to the police. A passenger in the car, Roy Hamilton Dellow, of Island Bay, company secretary, said the car was not travelling at more than 20 to 25 miles per hour at the time of the accident. He felt a bump, and the; windscreen broke.- When he looked back, the car was past- the stationary car at the kerb, and he could not see anything else. When they arrived at College Street, somebody said: “I think we hit a man.” Nothing more, he thought, was said. He himself wanted to get away. Detective Brosnan said that at 2.30 a.m. on the following morning he saw blood and fragments of bone on a verandah post, and two other posts about 14 feet away were lightly grazed. On the following evening, he discovered a car parked at Houghton Bay, off Queen’s Drive. SyrOn came to the station on that day, and reported that his car had been stolen from Holland Street between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. The car’s windscreen was broken. There was a graze on the left hand side, and spots of blood were on the inside of the glass of the front left hand door. The car was later claimed by Syron. “I am satisfied that the car was travelling through the intersection at an excessive speed, and at a corner where one should take extra care,” the coroner commented. “It is not quite clear whether the deceased was keeping a sharp look out.” The coroner found that Anderson died at the public hospital from Injuries received by being struck in Willis Street by a car driven by Syron. "