CHARGE DISMISSED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16706, 25 July 1928, Page 11

CHARGE DISMISSED

INTOXICATION NOT PROVED tPer Press Association.) PALMERSTON N., this day. At- the Police Court this morning Leonard Melles, 50, a motor mechanic, was charged with intoxication while m charge of a motor-ear. Evidence was given by several police witnesses that the accused was under the inlluenco of liquor while a companion was lying in a ditch drunk, the car at tlm time of the accused’s arrest- having gone over a bank on the main road at Whanarongo. For the defence a doctor gave evidence that he had examined tho accused in the cells subsequently to his arrest, lindiiig him excited and talkative, hut perfectly coherent, and with bill control of his muscular powers. '! he accused was not drunk, although lie had had drink. The -accused, in evidence, said he had had two drinks, one in the morning ami one in the afternoon. His companion had been picked up in town, and was then drunk. The accident to the car happened in avoiding another which was zig zagging along the road. Saying that there was great ditlicidty in defining what the state ot intoxication was, the magistrate, Mr. J. L. Stout, decided that the case was a border-line one, it not having been proved that Melles was in such a state, as to bring him within the Act. .1 he charge was dismissed.