KAYE DON'S CRASH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21887, 24 August 1934, Page 8

KAYE DON'S CRASH

DEATH OF MECHANIC MANSLAUGHTER VERDICT SENTENCE AND APPEAL £from our own* correspondent] LONDON. July 20 Mr. Kaye Don, the racing motorist, found guilty at the Manx Assizes of the manslaughter of his mechanic, and was sentenced to four months' imprisonment. An application for leave to appeal was granted and Don was released pending the hearing of the appeal, on £IOOO bail. The prosecution was conducted by Mr. R. B. Moore, the Manx AttorneyGeneral, and the accused was defended by Mr. E. C. Kneen and Mr. J. A. Cain, advocates of the Manx Bar. Tlio trial followed the majority finding of a Manx coroner's jury that the death of Francis Tayler, Mr. Don's mechanic, who was killed in a practice run on May 28, was "due to the culpable negligent driving of Mr. Kaye Don." Mr. Kaye Don, who gave evidence, 6 aid: —" I drove the car in the morning and complained about the steering. I took it to Tayler, and told him the car had a tendency to wander. 1 drove the car again in the afternoon for a brake test, and again said that the steering would have to be attended to. Later, he was told that the king pin bushes were loose, and he left the mechanic to adjust, that. In the evening lie went to play bridge, but was told that Tayler wanted him to take out the car for another test. " 1 told him that I could not possibly do so," said Mr. Don, " as 1 was just going to play bridge. One or two people paid I should go out in fairness to Mr. Tayler, who bad worked hard at the car, and I agreed to do so. I want everyone to understand that I am not suggesting that Tayler insisted on the car going out. It was my car. I felt that he had worked hard and wanted it tested." The Material Points Describing the accident Kaye Don said, " I went to negotiate this corner and I saw the lights of another car approximately 50 yards before the bend. I went to take the corner in the ordinary way. The car did not respond to the, steering, and my hub cap caught the hub cap of the other car." In his final speech the AttorneyGe'heral said: "The theorists have had a fine battle to-day. An attempt has been made to make this a question of rival theories, but on the material Eoints there is no dispute at all;. Kaye •on, regardless of law, without inquiring whether this was a road where lie might expect traffic, without asking when sunset or light-up time came, set out to do what he could do nowhere else in these islands —race his car to a blind corner at the same ispeed as he had averaged in the practice round that morning." The'jurv returned a verdict of guilty and the Deemster considered the sentence over the week-end. When the accused was before him on the Monday the Deemster said: — "Manslaughter is a serious offence. It is one which involves consequences of a grave nature to every person in the community, and it obviously would be improper for any court not to take eerious cognisance of it and to punish it, irrespective of the position and the actual personal circumstances of the defendant. In the ordinary course, therefore, I should have imposed a sentence of six months' imprisonment, but there are certain circumstances in your case which T thought it proper to take into consideration, and which I have spent the week-end considering. They were well put by your counsel, Mr. Kneen, to whom T think yon owe a debt of gratitude. "There is, of course, the fact that any pdnishment that I might impose is not the whole, perhaps not even the main part, of what yon yourself will have to suffer—cmite differently, perhaps, from th"t of another man charged with a like offence. There is the effect upon your career, circumstances. reputation, and so forth. Not only that, but. of course, it is a case where' you have not disturbed your senses with drink or anything of that isort "As a Good Citizen" "Although you, in the opinion of the jury, acted in such a way as was criminallv careless of human life, nevertheless you took out this racing car in the belief, wrongly, of course, that you had a right to. practise it, and therefore, it is not quite like a case of a man in an ordinary car going 'blinding' along the road. "Nevertheless, the jury, who are the tribunal in your country as well as in ours, who are the sole judges of charges of this description, have found you guilty. Whether you agree with their verdict, or whether you do not, I know that, as a good citizen, you will say in the interests of the whole community that the verdict must be accepted —that 'L have offended against the laws of the country: T must pay the penalty.' "T know that in the case of the sentence I am about to impose, you will face it with as much courage, perhaps it may be even higher courage, as that which you have displayed in other vicissitudes of your life. Not only in law, but I am sure in the opinion of all citizens, once the penalty has been endured with resignation and patience, after it is over, the matter~*vill be treated as if it had never occurred, and all memory of it will be wiped! ou£ "