DRUNK IN CHARGE OF CAR

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19377, 15 July 1937, Page 15

DRUNK IN CHARGE OF CAR

BARONET PLEADS GUILTY i' CANTERBURY £25 FINE NO LICENSE FOR 3 YEARS (I’cr Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. Sir Charles Clifford, a sheep farmer and well-known sportsman of Stoneyhurst, North Canterbury, pleaded guilty in the Kaiapoi Magistrate’s Court this morning to a charge of being intoxicated while in charge of a car in Cookson street, Kaiapoi, on July (5. He was fined £25 and his license was suspended until May 31, 1938, and lie was prohibited from obtaining another until July 14, 1940.

Mr. H. A. Young, S.M., was on the bench.

Constable Holmes said that on July 6. at 3.30 p.m., Clifford was driving from Christchurch to his home in North Canterbury. When going over the Styx overbridge his car was observed to leave the roadway and mount the footpath and continue for five or six yards. A traffic inspector named Clark was coming behind and saw what happened. The defendant’s car continued to Belfast, sometimes on the correct side and sometimes on the incorrect side of the road and went through Belfast in that manner. The inspector was not able to catch up as his car had recently been overhauled and had a baffle plate fitted. He telephoned to the Kaiapoi police and Constable Conway stopped Clifford outside the police station. Fitness to Drive Queried Constable Holmes added that he would ask for the suspension of Clifford’s driving license for as long as was possible, for lie did not think the defendant was a fit man io have a license. Mr. R. J. Loughnan, who appeared for Clifford, said that fie wished to stress the fact that there had not been an accident and there was no traffic on the road. Under those conditions there was no need for extraordinary caution on the part of any driver.

“On behalf of the defendant. I want to say that when he is stone cold sober his appearances are against him,” Mr. Loughnan declared. “That is so much so that even his intimate friends might alcoholically misjudge him.”

On the day in question, added Mr. Loughnan, the defendant had a glass of sherry and a glass of gin and soda alter lunch, but that was not going to hurt anyone. Condition of Health To the magistrate, Dr. M. G. Louissbn said that the conditions described had prevailed for some years. He agreed that it was not in the defendant’s own interest, apart from the public interest, that he should have a license until he could conform to tests some time in the future. From the circumstances and from previous convictions it seemed clear that the defendant should not be allowed to drive a car until, at all events, his general health had improved. The magistrate remarked that it was advisable that the defendant's license should be suspended and that he should be prohibited from obtaining another for a considerable time, although the defendant had been led into a breach of the Act to a great extent through the conditions of his health.

TREATED AS CRIMINALS NAZI DECREE ISSUED (Klee. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Julv 14, 3 p.m.) BERLIN, July 13. Drunken motorists will henceforth be treated as criminals in Germany and pilloried, also their names will be published in all the newspapers. Drunken pedestrians endangering traffic will be penalised in the same way.