DRUNKEN MOTORIST.

Wairarapa Age, 26 May 1936, Page 5

DRUNKEN MOTORIST.

COLLISION IN NGAIO GORGE. FINE OF £lO IMPOSED. WELLINGTON, May 25. ‘A car in the hands of a man who is intoxicated is a menace to the public,” said Mr. W .F. Stilwell, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court to-day, in imposing a fine of £lO, and suspending for twelve months the driving licence of Stan Oldfield, coachbuilder, aged 36, who pleaded guilty to being drunk in charge of a motor-car in the Ngaio Gorge on Saturday. Senior-Sergeant J. Dempsey, who prosecuted, said that the defendant had stopped at a city hotel about lunch time on Saturday. He had shortly afterwards driven his car in the Ngaio Gorge Road, and had collided with a car which had been parked there. A wheel and the steering gear of the parked ?ar had been damaged. The defendant had travelled on at a slow speed for 80 yards. The defendant was in an advanced state of intoxication and had said to a constable, “I am d drunk.” Mr. R. Watterson, who appeared for the defendant, said that Oldfield was a man of good repute for steadiness, industry, and sobriety, and he had not been in this sort of trouble before. Oldfield had called at a hotel on his way home to get one “square rigger” for friends who were visiting his home on Saturday evening. He fell in with friends and drank more than he should have done. The car that had been struck was parked in a prohibited part of the roadway.

Mr. W. F. Stilwell said that he accepted counsel’s assurance that the defendant was ordinarily an estimable citizen, and in this case he was clearly able to exercise some degree of control. In view of the frequency of this type of offence, however, the request for a suppression of the defendant’s name would have to be refused.— (PA.)