CONFLICT OF EVIDENCE

Southland Times, Issue 21192, 19 September 1930, Page 8

CONFLICT OF EVIDENCE

INQUEST INTO SLAUGHTERMAN’S DEATH. STATEMENT BY CORONER. (Per United Press Association.) Wellington, September IS. At lhe inquest concerning the death of Henry Jones, a slaughterman aged 57 years, the Coroner (Mr J. S. Barton) returned a verdict that the deceased died on September 10 of delirium tremens following injury and shock, culminating in heart failure, sustained on September 2 when he was knocked against a shop window by a car then in the control of the owner, Victor Brownson. The Coroner said that there was a conflict of evidence as to how Brownson was controlling the car at the time of the accident. The accident occurred at the corner of Ghuznee and Cuba streets.

According to evidence at the inquest the driver of the car swerved to avoid pedestrians, the car mounting the footpath and crashing into a window, knocking Jones down.

One witness, John Watts, gave evidence that there was a woman in the driver’s seat of the car at the time of the accident and that Brownson told her to “make haste and get out of it.” ■ Other witnesses, however, said that they had seen no woman in the car. The Coroner said that he accepted the evidence of the witness Watts as true that there was a woman in the car and that when the witness reached the car immediately after the accident, she was in the driver’s seat, but promptly got out and went away. All contrary evidence of independent witnesses was merely negative. They did not see the second occupant. “Watts’ evidence is too detailed and circumstantial to be dismissed as a mistake,” said the Coroner, “and it is my opinin that it is corroborated strongly by the demeanour in the witness-box of the witness Ottergon, who admits that on September 9 he told the police that he had seen a woman sitting next to the driver and that she then got out and hurried away, but stated to-day that he wished to contradict it.”