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Northern Advocate, 23 October 1936, Page 7

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DRUNKEN MOTORIST A LABOURER ON SUSTENANCE. iSpecial to “Northern Advocate.”} AUCKLAND, This Day. A sentence of three months’ imprisonment and the cancellation of his driving license was the penalty imposed on Henry Thomas Hansen, a labourer, aged 30, after pleading guilty in the Supreme Court to a charge of being intoxicated while in a car in Eden Terrace on Saturday afternoon last. Sub-Inspector Fox informed Mr Hunt, S.M., that the rental car was driven by Hansen at a speed of 40 miles an hour, and crashed into a car, which contained a young woman, Miss Violet Thomas, and which was parked on the wrong side of the street. Both cars were damaged, and Miss Thomas was badly cut over one eye, suffering concussion. She was in hospital, but would be discharged as recovered in a few days. After the accident, Hansen was located in Victoria Street and was arrested and certified by a doctor as unfit to have charge of a car. -

Counsel for accused, Mr Bouisson, said he could not understand how the car was hired out. as Hansen’s companion was in a worse state of intoxication. Hansen was a married man, with one child, and his wife in ill-health. He was on sustenance. Mr Hunt: What! A labourer on sustenance, and driving round in a car! Counsel replied that he had been employed to drive the other man. When the magistrate passed sentence, a woman in. the public part of the court, addressing Hansen’s solicitor, cried out: “Can’t you do something.” Mr Hunt: “He very nearly put that young woman in her grave. That will do.”