DEATH AT CROSSING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22954, 4 February 1938, Page 12

DEATH AT CROSSING

SIGNALS NOT SEEN DRIVER FOUND GUILTY REMANDED FOR SENTENCE The trial of Joseph Shannon, aged 29, (Mr. M. Robinson) on a ehargo of negligently driving a motor-car so as to cause death was completed before Mr. Justice Fair at the Supremo Court yesterday. Accused was the driver of a car which collided with the engine of a railway train at the Titirangi Road crossing on the night of Sept-em-ber 23, and as a result a passenger in the back seat, Geoffrey Bendelow, aged 53, met his death. The evidence was completed on Wednesday. Tho Crown Prosecutor, Mr. V. R. Meredith, referred to tho wig-wag signal, the alarm bell, tho lights of the engine and tho three blasts of the whistle, all of which failed to stop the car-driver. If they considered there had been an absenco of care on his part it was their duty to say so. Mr. Robinson said accused denied that there had been any negligence on his part. That was for the Crown to prove, and if there was any reasonable doubt he was entitled to tho benefit of it. It was not suggested that Shannon was drunk while driving. It was no offence to drive drunken men or to have liquor in the car. Accused had been put in such a position that ho could not avoid the accident. His Honor said that in the Crown's view accused had been negligent in not seeing the lights of tho * engine, in failing to hear its whistle, in failing to seo the wig-wag signal, or to hear the alarm bell. Tho Crown said tho only fair inference was that accused was driving negligently and in a way that no ordinarily careful driver would do. After an absence of an hour the jury brought in a verdict of guilty, and accused was remanded for sentence.