DID WOMAN HURRY AWAY?

Taranaki Daily News, 19 September 1930, Page 9

DID WOMAN HURRY AWAY?

WITNESSES IN CONFLICT SEQUEL TO MOTOR-OAR FATALITY , CORONER’S OUTSPOKEN COMMENT. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. At an inquest concerning the < death of Henry Jones, a slaughterman, aged 57, the coroner, Mr. J. S. Barton, returned a verdict that deceased died on September 10 as a consequence of injury and ' shock, culminating in heart failure, sustained on September 2, when he was knocked against a shop window by a car then in control of the owner, Victor Brownson.

The coroner, .said. that..there was a conflict of evidence as to iiow Brownaon was contr6lling the car at the time of ■ the accident,’which occurred at the corner of and. Cuba Streets. According to the evidence, the driver swerved/ ,toavoid.- pedestrians,, the car .mounting the footpath, crashing into a window and knocking Jones down. One witness,, John WAtts, gave evi-. de nee that there Was a. Womdn in the driver’s seat of 1 the car- at the time of the accident,; and that Brownson told her" to “make .hqste and get. put of it.” Other witnesses', however,; said they had 'seen .no womanlin'thq--Shr-The .coronef said he accepted the evidence of the witness’Watts as - true, that there was a woman in" the car, and that when witness reached the car immediately after, the accident she was in the , ■ driver’s seat, but promptly got out and went away. All the 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, in my opinion-it is corroborated strongly by tlm demeanour inAthe ‘ witness box of the •• witness Otterson, who' admits Hat -ori; September the police that he bad-seen a. sitting- next to the driver,,and that she.then got out and 'hurried away, ' but ’ stated to-day that he wished'td contradict it.”