Intoxicated Driver in Decrepit Motor

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 715, 15 July 1929, Page 1

Intoxicated Driver in Decrepit Motor

HAD NO LICENCE FINE OF £2O IMPOSED Found intoxicated in a motor that, according to the sergeant who arrested him, would have been dangerous for a sober man to drive, Frederick Palette was fined £2O at the Police Court this morning. TfR. F. K. HUNT, S.M., also ordered that no licence to drive should be issued for two years, and Palette was convicted and discharged on the charge of driving without a licence. Palette, aged 27. was charged with being intoxicated in charge of a ear in Newton Road on Saturday. He pleaded guilty end Sub-Inspector McCarthy called the sergeant to tell the magistrate the true facts of the case. The sergeant said that on Saturday afternoon he was watching an old car which was drawn up beside a “parking prohibited” sign in Newton Road. Palette had come along with two bottles of beer, which he placed in the back seat. He had then cranked the oar and climbed in. When witness accosted him he was fiddling with the gears. The car was in a terrible state. Its brakes were defective and it was not fit to be taken out by even a sober man, the sergeant contended. Palette had been unable to produce his licence when called upon to do so. Palette assured the court that it was the first time he had driven since the end of the last licensing year. He had been driving the car to a friend s place after repairing it. “You are the sort of man that should not be allowed in a car,” observed the magistrate, consulting Palette’s list and reading out records of convictions for conversion of cars and negligent driving. The total was 16 previous convictions. —- Default of the fine was fixed at one month’s imprisonment, and accused wa3 given 14 days to find the money.