LOSS OF MEMORY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3996, 14 October 1930, Page 5

LOSS OF MEMORY.

UNABLE TO GIVE EVIDENCE,

PROCEEDINGS AT INQUEST. WELLINGTON, October 7.

Loss of memory through injury was the reason given why Lawson John August was not present to give evidence at the inquest to-day on Francis Edmund Blake, who died on July 14, following a road collision at Petone on the same evening. The coroner, Mr E. Page, S.M., considered that as August’s motor cycle had caused Blake’s death he should be called, and the proceedings were accordingly adjourned. August was riding a motor cycle when a collision occurred in the dark with a cyclist who was accompanied by another cyclist, Albert Edward Hope, who said that neither had lights. After the crash he found his companion lying dead on the road. The motor cyclist was lying alongside his machine. Counsel said August had suffered head and body injuries, and had been in hospital in an unconscious condition for three weeks. He apparently was not normal, and his mind was a blank on the. affair. The police said they were unable to obtain a statement from August. The coroner said the doctor’s certificate did not say that August was unable to give evidence, which he thought he should do. The court was adjourned to enable August to give evidence.