Farmer Found Guilty On Three Charges

Wanganui Chronicle, 18 May 1950, Page 10

Farmer Found Guilty On Three Charges

INVERCARGILL, Last Night (PA> —After a retirement of 20 minutes a jury found Daniel Ford, a farmer, of Drummond, aged 41, guilty of failing to stop to ascertain if any person had been injured, and failing to render all practicable aid. When his trial ended before Mr Justice Kennedy in the Supreme Court at Invercargill yesterday, Ford, who had previously pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while intoxicated and causing injury, was remanded until Friday for sentence. The charges arose from an accident at the Waikiwi bridge on February 14 when Olive Mary Patterson, a 14-year-old girl, was knocked from her bicycle by Ford’s car and had her right leg broken. Fifteen witnesses were called by the Crown (Mr J. R. Mills), but none was called by Mr L. F. Moller, who appeared for Ford.

Mr Moller addressed the jury at length. He said that tfio Crown had not proved that Ford had been aware that he had hit the girl. Immediately after the accident Ford hart driven to a hotel just over a mile away for a meal. That was not the action of a hit-and-run motorist, who would try to get as far away from the scene of an accident as possible. The police evidence stated that Ford was drunk enough at the hotel to be unfit to drive. It was more than possible that Ford did not know he had hit the girl.