DRIVER ACQUITTED

Taranaki Daily News, 13 February 1935, Page 5

DRIVER ACQUITTED

ALLEGATION OF NEGLIGENCE. MAN FOUND DEAD ON RAILWAY. By Telegraph—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night A verdict of not guilty was returned by the jury in the case of John Stewart, whose trial was completed in the Supreme Court to-day before the Chief. Justice, Sir Michael Myers, on a charge of negligently driving a motorcar on the Masterton-Carterton road on November 30, thereby causing the death of Thomas Lacey. In summing up His Honour, while observing that Stewart’s conduct both before and after the accident had been reprehensible, warned the jury to be very careful in the light of the evidence of a number of motorists that Lacey had been narrowly avoided by them when he had been running out into the road in their track. The jury was absent little more than half an hour. His Honour ordered, the prisoner’s discharge. Mr. P. S. K. Macassey conducted the case for the Crown and Stewart was defended by Mr. S. V. Gooding. In evidence. on his own behalf Stewart frankly admitted to His Honour that he had gone to Carterton from Masterton to get drinks after hours. Several drivers on the same road the same night deposed that a man like Lacey behaved in an erratic manner, and three drivers said they had missed the man by the narrowest margin. In his address to the jury Mr. Gooding emphasised the three main submissions: (1) That there was no evidence of negligence on the part of Stewart; (2) even if there were evidence of negligence it could not be proved in this case that negligence was the cause of Lacey’s death; (3) if there was any evidence of negligence it was the act of Lacey, and it was that negligence that caused his death.