“MY UNLUCKY DAY”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 86, 12 April 1938, Page 9

“MY UNLUCKY DAY”

DRUNKEN MOTORIST

CONSTABLES PREVENT HIM DRIVING

When accosted b> Constable R. E. Gardner while sitting in a motor-ca; in Ridgway Street on March 19, and told that he was too drunk to drive, James Green, a Maori, said: “This must be my unlucky day.” It was. At the Magistrate’s Court yesterday, on a charge of being in charge of a motor-car while in a state of intoxication; Green was fined £5, with costs 12s. doctor’s fee £1 Is, and his licence was cancelled for 12 months. Default was fixed at one month. It was stated by Constable S. F. Best that he noticed defendant and another Maori proceeding along Ridgway Street in a drunken condition. Upon entering the bar of the Rutland Hotel the Maoris were ejected. Constable Best followed them along the street for a few yards until they entered a motor-car. Green sitting in the driver’s seat. It was then that he was apprehended. The evidence of the previous wit-

ness was corroborated by Constable R. E. Gardner. Constable C. L. Burke, who was in charge of the watchhouse, said that defendant was in an intoxicated condition when brought into the station. “He was not in a fit state to drive a car,” said Sergeant R. L. F. Whiting.

Giving evidence, Green said that on the afternoon in question he went into the bar of the hotel to bring out his friend. He had only had three or four drinks that afternoon, and did not think that he was drunk. When he sat in the car the constable took him in charge. “I believe the evidence of the two constables who saw you walking along Ridgway Street and subsequently arrested you,” said the magistrate, Mr J. H. Salmon. “Through the vigilance of the police you were prevented from driving, an act that would have meant that you would have been either heavily fined or sent to prison. In. this case I wish to emphasise the point that there is a distinction between driving a car while intoxicated and being drunk in charge.”