NAPIER CYCLIST KILLED

Taranaki Daily News, 10 November 1927, Page 9

NAPIER CYCLIST KILLED

MANSLAUGHTER CHARGE FAILS. JUDGE THINKS DEFENCE ABSURD. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Napier, Last Night. Charged with riding a motor-cycle in such a manner as to cause the death of Alfred Ernest Condliffe at Tamumu, near Waipawa, on June 10, James Andrew Simmons appeared at the Supreme Court in Napier to-day before Mr. Justice MacGregor. Evidence was given for the prosecution by a young lady, an eyewitness of the accident, who was some distance a.way. She said the accused was on the incorrect side of the road and Condliffe was on his correct side when a head-on collision occurred. She found Condcliffe dead beside the road. Accused was lying on the road under the machine with his leg broken. The motor-cycles were on accused’s righthand side of the road. She attributed the accident to the fact that accused was on the wrong side. For the defence accused said he w'as on the correct. side and Condliffe was on his wrong side, this being substantiated by experts in motors, who said that by the damage to the machines they judged the accident occurred on accused’s left, and that it was not head, on but was at an angle. The position of the machines on the right of the road was accounted for by them by the fact that the angle, together with the speed, had thrown them there.

His Honour, in summing up, strongly discredited the story of the expert witnesses for the defence, classing it as absurd, but the jury, after a short retirement, returned a verdict of not guilty.