MOTORIST SENTENCED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21957, 8 May 1941, Page 7

MOTORIST SENTENCED

THREE MONTHS’ IMPRISONMENT A sentence of three months’ imprisonment, with the cancellation of his driving licence for two years, was imposed on Rodger Bee by Mr Justice Northcroft in the Supreme Court in Timaru yesterday. On the previous day Bee was found guilty by a jury of driving in a negligent manner, thereby causing Injury to Nancy Dorothy Lawrence; of failing to stop after the accident; of falling to ascertain whether anyone had been injured; and of falling to render all possible assistance to an injured person. Mr R. Stout, who appeared for the prisoner, said that it was very difficult to discuss the penalty in a case where there was not the usual terpitude of a criminal. However reprehensible the action of the prisoner may have been, counsel submitted that intoxication had played a part in the offences. Prisoner was a married man with a family of eight. One son had recently been in Greece, and two others would shortly be going overseas. He had a large farm at Glenavy, and deprivation of his liberty would be a serious thing for him. Prisoner was prepared to take out a prohibition order as suggested by the Probation Officer. His Honour said that he could only regard with the gravest disapproval the conduct of a man who spent three or four hours in a hotel and then drove home, recklessly crossing a main highway and ignoring a vehicle which he must have seen. He collided with the vehicle so violently as to capsize it, and it was only by the grace of God that all the occupants were not killed. Notwithstanding that, he drove home and continued drinking, in spite of the fact that only a mile or so away were the victims of his own recklessness. The case was a serious one, and the Court must mark its disapproval. Prisoner would be sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. He had shown himself to be unworthy of a car, and his driving licence would be cancelled, and he would be prohibited from obtaining a new licence for two years from the termination of the present licensing period.