CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22329, 1 August 1934, Page 6

CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE

CAR STRUCK BY TRAIN A SALUTARY SENTENCE. (Peb United Press Association.) AUCKLAND, July 31. “Ag the result of your inexcusable neglect the lives of two human beings came to a premature end," said Mr Justice Herdniau when sentencing Frank Impey, at the Supreme Court tp-day for negligent driving so as to, cause the death of two passengers in his car, which Was struck by a train. The judge said the ■ prisoner should have had no difficulty in observing the approach of the train, and if his war had been under control he should have been able to avoid an accident. It was all very well to plead now for sympathy, but what about the - people who had been killed, • and ■ what about their relatives? When a case got- to the. length of trial in the • Supreme Court' the loss that relatives suffered- was' forgotten and the judge was- invited' to extend'sympathetic treatment -to the one responsible for the calamity. In this.case it was plain that the prisoner was criminally careless, and his Honor’ Said he- could do nothing else but inflict" a punishment that the prisoner would remember.' The prisoner was" sentenced to three months’" imprisonment with hard labour, and his driver’s license was cancelled for five years.""