SEQUEL TO FATALITY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20924, 14 July 1931, Page 12

SEQUEL TO FATALITY.

WOMAN DRIVER CHARGED. ALLEGATION OF NEGLIGENCE. COMMITTAL FOR TRIAL. 'A woman motorist, Grace Catherine Redman, was charged in the Oiahuhu Police Court yesterday with having negligently driven a motor-car and caused the death of Francis John Johnston on May 1. The case was heard before Mr. F. H. Levien, S.M. SeniorSergeant Rowell conducted the prosecution and Mr. G. Finlay represented accused.

Alexander Brand said that on the morning of May 1 he was walking with deceased and Walter Pittman, on the Great South Road toward the Westfield freezing works, where they were employed. Witness was walking on the left of the three, Pittman and ho being on the bitumen'and Johnston on the edge of the concrete. There was no footpath at the place. When they were about 100 yards from the overhead bridge at Westfield a passenger bus passed toward tho city. The driver waved to deceased, who acknowledged the greeting. A few seconds after the bus passed a motor-car passed from behind. As it passed deceased fell on the road.

The car pulled up and accused came back to where deceasod was lying, continued witness. She seemed excited and asked witness if he did not hear the car approaching. He told her he did not, nor did he hear the horn sounded. There was no other vehicle on the road near witness and his companions when the accused's car passed them. Evidence of a similar nature was given *>y Walter Pittman. Two other workmen, Richard Benson and Duncan Ross, said they were walking in the same direction as deceased and the previous witnesses, some 20 to 30 paces behind. The car passed close to them and they saw it strike deceased above the thigh and he fell to the ground on his head. The car was travelling at about 25 miles an hour.

William Charles Langton, a woolsorter, said he followed the accused's car on his motor-cycle from Church Street about 300 yards from the scene of/the accident.. The speed was not unusually fast, nor was there anything unusual in the passing of the car and the bus. He did not stop at tho time but saw accused return to the injured man. The bus driver, John Curham, said he waved to deceased that morning. He usually met him in this vicinity. He did not remember seeing any car in the locality, and no car passed .his bus as he was passing the three men. Had there been he could not have waved to deceased. • -He did not see the collision.

Cyril Boy Hewlett, a passenger in accused's car, said he saw the bus approaching, and also the three men on the road. Accused sounded her horn when about 'one chain from the men. There was plenty of room for the car to pass between the men and the bus. The bus passed the car just as it passed the men. Witness noticed the man nearest wobble into the front left-hand mudguard, and accused stopped the car about two lengths away when witness told her what had occurred.

Medical evidence was given to show that deceased's death resulted from a fracture of the skull.

Accused pleaded not guilty, reserved her defence and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial, bail being fixed at £4OO. t -