AFTER THE BALL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20740, 6 December 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

AFTER THE BALL.

FATAL ROAD ACCIDENT.

OXFORD STUDENT ON TRIAL.

NOT GUILTY OF MANSLAUGHTER. Joseph Arthur Grieves,' a 21-year-old Oxford undergraduate who was charged with the manslaughter of a motor-cyclist, was found not guilty at the Old Bailey, London, on October 22, and was discharged. The motor-cyclist was Raymond Ralph Ridley, who, with a pillion passenger, was knocked over by a car driven by Grieves between Oxford and Woodstock. Both were killed. The accident occurred as Grieves was driving three friends from Oxford after a University ball on June 26. The defence was that Grieves would have seen the motor-cyclist had it been on the near side, and not on the crown of the road.

Sir Patrick Hastings, K.C., defending counsel, put a few questions to Grieves about .his previous driving experience. Grieves said that he had had a licence for five years, and during that time he had nevor been convicted or charged. He had not had an accident of any kind. Mr. Roberts, prosecuting counsel, in addressing the jury, said the defence was

that the motor-cycle was obscured by a van, but was it not a crime to trust to the optimistic hope that no one was in the road l He suggested that it was driving in a manner highly dangerous to the public to speculate on something one could not see, and travel at such a pace as to be unable to pull up. Sir Patrick Hastings said he doubted if there had ever been a. case in which, not only the defendant, but everyone who had given evidence on his behalf, had been so scrupulously careful to say nothing that was not absolutely true. " It is not a case of a man being drunk or racing down tho road," said Sir Patrick. " There is no suggestion of a gay party, laughing in each others' arms, joy-riding: there is no suggestion of tho sort of thing one is familiar with when people charged with motor-car offences are in a condition that they do not know what they aro doing." He suggested that tho accident was one of those terrible happenings which might occur to anyone. The prosecution seemed to suggest that Grieves was over-tired through having been at a university ball all night. " You may feel that ho was driving too fast; that he was over-tired," said counsel, " that it is desirable the authorities at

Oxford should say undorgraduates who have been up all night should not go out in cars in tne morning. But I sincerely urge you will not for the rest of his life make this young man stand convicted of felony." "Mr. Justice Wright, summing up, described the case, as an unpleasant one for everybody concerned. " Speed," he said, " does not in itself amount to disregarding tho lives of others. Speed at the proper time and place may bo perfectly innocent and harmless. It is speed at the wrong time and place—dashing round coiners—that is dangerous. . "If iv driver's attention wanders; if he disregards other people; if ho indulges in speed mania or is careless in his driving, he is doing something which in tho nature of things involves tho possibility of serious danger. It is 'no use saying his attention wandered because he was tired; in such a caso ho has no right to bo driving." " I do not agree," said tho judge, in his concluding remarks, to the jury, with the view that this was a terrible happening which might occur to anybody. But it js entirely a matter for you."