ERROR OF JUDGMENT

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12357, 29 January 1926, Page 6

ERROR OF JUDGMENT

LEADS TO LOSS OF LIFE * INQUIRY INTO MOTOR FATALITY. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, January 28. This inquiry has been a painful one to listen to, for there was no reason why such a young life should have been thrown aw*ay. Both cars were visible to each other long before they came into collision. “This has resolved itself into a fight between the drivers of the cars,” said Mr F. K. Hunt, S.M., coroner, when the inquest into tho circumstances of the death of Finlay Charles Joseph Leathart (19), who was killed in a collision between two motor-cars at the intersection of Hauraki street and Harbour View road, Birkenhead, cun Christmas Day, was concluded. After a considerable volume of evidence had been given by numerous witnesses, the coroner returned a verdict that the deceased died from shock and heart failure as the result of a collision. Mr Hunt said that on tho evidence he could not find that either driver was culpably negligent, but he was of the opinion that Fred Lees, the driver of the oar in which the deceased was riding, committed an error of judgment in approaching the junction of the streets at a fast pace, without giving sufficient warning that he was leaving the main road for Harbour view road.