TRAIN AND BUS SMASH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 25 June 1943, Page 5

TRAIN AND BUS SMASH

WITNESS ALTERS EVIDENCE inspection of Batteries Christchurch, This Day The inquest into the death of Florence Margaret Stewart, who was killed in an accident when a motorbus, the property of Midland Motorways Services, Ltd., in which Mrs Stewart was a passenger, collided with a train at the High street crossing at Kaiapoi on April 13, was concluded yesterday before Mr E. C. Lewey, S.M., sitting as Coroner. After a sitting that extended over two days and occupied six and a half hours in the actual hearing, the Coroner gave the following verdict: That Florence Margaret Stewart died from concussion and a fracture of the base of the skull, which injuries wera sustained on April 13, 1943, at Kaiapoi, when a mo,tor-bus owned by the Midland Motorways Services, Ytd., driven by George David Dudley Hungerford, in which deceased was a passenger, was run into by and collided with a railway train, the property of the New Zealand Railway Department. Under cross-examination Laurence Joseph Moran, an electric linesman who was responsible for the electric equipment on that part of the railway line where the accident happened, admitted he had made false statements about theft of the batteries, and a fake entry in his book. He was 65 years old and but for the war he would have retired. His record was a clean one. Any false statements he had made were after the accident

Richard Watt, a detective, said he had been asked to make inquiries regarding the theft of batteries at Kaiapoi. He had accompanied the witnesses Munro and Moran to the battery box. When they arrived the box was locked and the hasp appeared to have been recently welded. Alongside the batteries was a piece of cardboard, on which was written, April 5/1943. Moran had said that was the date on which he had renewed the batteries. Moran had told him that the batteries had not been stolen, but that he had thrown them away after he had examined them and found they ’had run down. He had thrown the porcelain tops into deep shrubbery. He had assisted the witness in the search for the tops, which ha been found.