DRIVER FOUND ASLEEP

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 840, 7 December 1929, Page 6

DRIVER FOUND ASLEEP

FRIEND HAD KEY OF LORRY NOT LEGALLY IN CHARGE From Our Own Correspondent HAMILTON, Friday. Found asleep in a car in Alma Street, Hamilton, recently, James Johnston McGill, 38, a butcher, of Arapuni, was charged with being intoxicated while in charge of a lorry, before Mr. Wyvern Wilson, S.M., in the Police Court today. The police said defendant and a friend were engaged in a drinking bout in the afternoon, and the car was found in the early hours of the morning. Several bottles of beer and a flask of whisky were lying about on the ground. Defendant said he was in charge of the car, and then denied it. The key of the lorry was not in defendant’s possession, and the vehicle was locked. A friend of defendant, Desmond Kelly, had called at the police station at 11 p.m. to look for McGill. He said McGill had been drinking, and that he (Kelly) had the key of the lorry. McGill had admitted having driven the lorry from Arapuni. Mr. Strang contended that it could not be held that McGill was “in charge of” the lorry within the meaning of the Act, seeing that it was impossible to move the vehicle, and that another man had the key. The magistrate dismissed the information.