LEFT TO DIE

NZ Truth, Issue 1063, 8 April 1926, Page 4

LEFT TO DIE

Motorist

CAR DIDN'T STOP

(Prom "Truth's" Ashburton Rep.) A rush of air, a crash, the thundering of wheels carrying a car at high speed into the distance, and a young man, hurled from his bicycle, lay dying on the roadside. But Nemesis overtook the alleged speed fiend, who, m the person. o. Joseph Plantie Betts, an Ashburton motor mechanic, now awaits his trial on a charge of manslaughter. Tragedy, swift and unexpected, cut short the promising young life of Claude Joseph Pearce while he was ruling his bicycle m company with George Francis Lysaght along the road to Ashburton on the evening of March 6. As they rode along the quiet country road it was twilight, but the visibility was still quite good. They had travelled some distance when a motor-car, travelling at a speed estimated at *40 miles an hour, roared past them. Pearce, who was on the off-side of the road, but 1 on his correct side, was crashed into and hurled on to the roadside. . . Lysaght did what he " could for his injured companion— alone with a dying man, the faint ' hum of the fast disappearing car still falling on his ears as he looked along the road to see it the call of hunmnity would prove stronger than the' lust of high speed. The motorist did not stop to see what damage he had done, and the life blood of the injured man ebbed as he lay helpless and unconscious. But about 7 p.m. the same evening, not long after, the accident, a motorcar entered an Ashburton garage, with a broken windshield and a bent mudguard. ' . That car waa driven by Joseph Plantie Betts, who had driven into the town along the road where the accident occurred. How was the windshield broken, and how came the mudguard to be bent? Betts told the Coroner that when the windshield was broken he felt a bump as though the car had struck something, but he had no idea m the world that he had hit a man. .But m company with a man named McSherry, Betts drove back along thfe road and on reaching the scene of the accident, Pearce was still lying where he had fallen, McSherry remarked to him that it looked as though he (Betts) had hit the man, but Betts could not see how this was possible. On his own admission Betts had driven along the road past the scene of the accident before arriving at Ashburton, but' there were two cars m front of him. One was driven by a man named Rogers and the other by a man named Bax, it was stated. The inquest was a protracted affair, the Coroner returning a verdict that Pearce died as a result of being hit by a motor-car which was driven by Betts. No sooner had the inquest concluded than Betts was brought before the Magistrate's Court on. a charge of negligently driving a car and thereby causing the death of Pearce. 11l a statement Betts said that he felt, an impact while driving tli'e car. but he was not aware that, he had struck a man. He pleaded not guilty, and was committel for trial, bail being allowed m one surety (self) £"100 and two sureties of £50 each.