INTOXICATED MOTORIST

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 9 March 1937, Page 7

INTOXICATED MOTORIST

FINED AND LICENSE CANCELLED (United Press Association) AUCKLAND, sth March. A fine of £ls was imposed and his driving license cancelled for nine months when a farmer and milk vender. Bertram Edmund Bezar, aged 30, appeared before Mr C. R. Orr-Walker, S.M., in the Police Court, and pleaded not guilty to a charge of being intoxicated in charge of a motor-van in Queen street on 23rd February. Summarising the evidence, the Magistrate said it showed that the defendant had consumed three bottles of beer on the afternoon of his arrest, yet beyond the fact that his breath smelled of liquor lie gave no other signs of intoxication when examined, by two doctors some time later. Allowance had to be made for the possible tendency of the police after being informed that an intoxicated driver had bumped into another car and the possible wrong tendency of a doctor supporting his own patient. “I have formed the opinion that the accused was unquestionably intoxicated at the time of his arrest,” the Magistrate continued. “It is not for me to say how much he was intoxicated at that material time, for it is possible his condition had improved by the time he was medically examined.”

The Magistrate said, in reply to counsel’s appeal for retention of the license, that forfeiture of the license had to be regarded as part of the penalty in such cases.