A TRAGIC JOY-RIDE

Otago Witness, Issue 3829, 2 August 1927, Page 71

A TRAGIC JOY-RIDE

OFFENDEK • ..H’RISONED. WELLINGTON, July 28. Henry Stacey and Ernest Edwin Harper were to-day found guilty in the Supreme Court, before Air Justice Reed and a jury, of manslaughter. Stacey was sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment with hard labour, and Harper to nine months’ imprisonment with hard labour. In passing sentence, his Honor gave effect to the jury's recommendation to mercy. The facts of the case were that on Alav 24, Stacey and Harper, who were drunk at’ the time, stole an Essex car and careered along the Hutt road at about 50 miles an hour. There they collided with a service motor car coming to Wellington from Masterton, with the result that Henry Brian Kenny, the driver of the service ear, was killed. The evidence of the Crown pointed to the fact that Stacey was the driver, while the counsel for accused respectively sought to prove that the driver of the car was not their particular client. The jury was away 75 minutes. The two accused were lucky to escape from the collision with their lives.