HEAVY FINE IMPOSED

Taranaki Daily News, 1 May 1937, Page 20 (Supplement)

HEAVY FINE IMPOSED

INTOXICATED MOTORIST DR1VER ADMITS THE OFFENCE. CAN CELLATION OF HIS LICENSE. Pleading guilty to being in a state of intoxication while in charge of a motor-car, Charles Edward Bovett was frned £15 by Mr. W. H. Woodward, S.M., in the New Plymouth Police Court yesterday and ordered to pay one guinea rnedical expenses. His license was cancelled and he was prohibited from obtaining another for two years. Bovett was about New Plymouth hotels on Thursday and admitted having five long beers, said Senior-Sergeant E. T. C. Turner, who conducted Ihe prosecution. About 7.50 p.m. Bovett met a young man named M. J. Cooper, and it was arranged that Bovett should drive Cooper to Inglewood in a hired car. Bovett had a license but Cooper had not. It was agreed that Cooper should hire a car from Grundy's Motors and that the pair should share the cost. Collision Witli Another Car. A collision occurred between a car driven by Mr. John Orr, Kitchener Terrace, and that driven by Bovett near Burgess Park, said Senior-Sergeant Turner. Bovett's car swerved to its incorrect side of the road and struck the other car and came to a standstill about 50 feet from the point of impact. The two men left the car and wcnt back to Mr. Orr's car. When Mr. Orr accused Bovett of being intoxicated he said to Cooper, "Let's get away; he can fight this out with »y lawyer." When Bovett attempted to drive away his car would not go. Mr. Orr comriiunicated witli the police and Constable Woodward went to the seene of the collision and arrested Bovett, -who was examined by Dr. G. H. Thomson at 10.20 p.m. and certified to recovering from a state of intoxication and at the time barely capable of driving a car. Not Used to Liquor. Bovett infonned the police yesterday morning that he was not used to taking : intoxlcating liquors. He was a single mah, aged 28 years, and had been working at the Moturoa cool stores for some time. He was then unemployed and would have no work at the cool stores for about three weeks. As far as the police' knew he had not previously been before the court. j He had been about New Plymouth since Christmas, Bovett told Mr. Woodward. He had worked in the bush for a period but he was unfit for that type ^ of work because of ah illness. He was 'x

nearly well again. His average weekly earnings at the cool stores during a year would not be much more than £1. . The season had ended. Bovett would have to get a better job than the one he had, said Mr. Woodward, who added that if a substantial part of the fine was paid in a month further time would be allowed, but if it was not the fine would have to be transformed into a term of imprisonment.