AN INTOXICATED MOTORIST.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20138, 30 June 1927, Page 3

AN INTOXICATED MOTORIST.

NOVEL POINT RAISED. WHAT CONSTITUTES “IN CHARGE.” (Special to Daily Times.) WELLINGTON, June 28. In what circumstances is a person " in charge ” of a motor car? This question arose in the Magistrate’s Court to-day when Hughie Smith, a mechanic, aged 22, denied that he was intoxicated while in charge of a motor car at Eastbourne last Sunday night. Mr B. J. Dolan, who appeared for the accused, said that Smith’s defence was that he was neither in fact nor in law in charge of k the car at the time. The first' witness was Constable Thomassen, who said that on Sunday night he found the defendant sitting at the wheel of a three-seater car. A man named May was with him, and both* were drunk. Smith, who could hardly stand up, attempted to start the car, which was on the side of the road. Mr Dolan said the position, as the evidence would show, was that the accused and two or three other young men had just consumed a substantial amount of liquor in a bach. One of them then decided to go back to town, and Smith said he would drive him. Seeing the folly of allowing him to do so, one of the other men (Rex May) moved the motor car further down the road and rendered it useless by removing part of the magneto. Smith was therefore unable to move the car, even if he had tried to. Counsel for the defence submitted that to be "in charge ’’ of any inanimate object such as a motor car a person must be able to exercise effective control over it. Mr E. Page, S.M., said that Smith was a motor mechanic, and was therefore familiar with the workings of a car. “It seems that if he chose to get into the car and attempt to start it he was in charge of it; perhaps not in legal charge, but in physical control. The fact that he was drunk and unable to adjust the magneto does not ' affect the position and I propose to convict him.”

A fine of £lO, and costs, was imposed, and Smith was allowed one month in which to find the money.