NEGLIGENT DRIVING CHARGE FAILS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 98, 28 April 1939, Page 8

NEGLIGENT DRIVING CHARGE FAILS

ACCIDENT ON HUTT ROAD DEATHS OF TWO WOMEN NO EV IDENCE OF RECKLESSNESS [ Ter Preisa Association.) WELLINGTON, April 27. A case was begun yesterday in which James Alexander Wilson, alias James Kennedy, was charged before Mr. J. H. Luxford, S.M., with negligently driving a motor truck on the Hutt Road, on March 2, thereby causing the death of Mavis Eleanor Sixsmith and Audrey Joyce Wright. He was further charged with unlawful conversion of the truck.

Evidence yesterday included that of John Patrick Whiteford, civil servant, who, at about 2.30 that morning, came upon a truck at right angles to the road a mile south of the Petonc cross- ■ ing. The lights were burning. He found a man 16 feet away, one girl 27 feet, and another at least 50 feet away, all on the south side of the truck. Accused staggered across the road from the direction of a quarry. He was the only one of the four conscious. There was no sign of liquor on him. Proceedings collapsed to-day on the negligence charge, Mr. Luxford dismissing it on the ground that there was no evidence of recklessness, or excessive speed. James Alexander Shaw, vehicle inspector, said in evidence that on examining the undercarriage of the truck, ho discovered that the right i front shock absorber was disconnected. He considered that certain damage had been caused by the truck being driven at over 40 miles an hour going round a bend, and that, because of resistance on the shock absorber, the vehicle lurched heavily to the loft side, damaging the front brake arm and thus applying the left front brake. He considered that that was the cause of the vehicle getting out of control. When he appeared in Court this afternoon Wilson pleaded guilty to unlawful conversion of the truck and was remanded until Monday morning for sentence.