FINE REDUCED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22320, 18 January 1936, Page 15

FINE REDUCED

CONVICTION FOR SPEEDING REHEARING OF CASE A rehearing was granted in the Papakura Court yesterday in the case in which Harold D. Caro, of Hamilton, had been fined £7 10s for driving at a dangerous speed on the Great South Road on October 14. Mr. A. L. Tompkins explained that defendant was very concerned that it should be made to appear that be had in any way been careless of the public safety. His car was a particularly wellequipped one, and he considered the speeds at which ho travelled were quito safe. Inspector F. Jones said approaching the brewery near Otahuhu, defendant's speed was 60 miles an hour. He touched 65 to 60 across the Tamaki Bridge. A. E. Manning, a passenger in defendant's car, said that on the Ohinewai straight the car touched 60 miles an hour, but it did not appear to him to reach that speed again nearer Auckland. He would have noticed had it done so. Counsel stated that the inspector had not conveyed the correct impression in stating at the last sitting of the Court that, ho believed, on the previous occasion on which Caro had been convicted of speeding, lie had been fined £5. No previous penalty of such magnitude had been imposed. Caro's meniorv was that the amount was £2.

The magistrate held that defendant's speed was dangerous. He reduced the fine to £4 and costs, 10s. stating that the mention of a £5 previous fine had influenced him in fixing the amount of the penalty when the case was first heard.