DRUNKEN MOTORIST

Wairarapa Daily Times, 11 January 1932, Page 4

DRUNKEN MOTORIST

LICENSE CANCELLED. FINED £lO. Edward Stephen Fuller, service station proprietor, Greytown, on remand, appeared in the Magistrate’s Court this morning on a charge of being intoxicated while in charge of a motor iehide. Messrs. S. L. P. Free, and T. Wagg, Justices of the Peace, who presided, convicted and fined accused £lO and cancelled his license for a period of eighteen months. Accused, who was represented by counsel, pleaded guilty although he stated, when he appeared before the 'Court last Monday, that he was to plead not guilty. In giving details which gave rise to the charge, Sergeant Dyer said that Fuller had collided with a car driven by Mr. C. M. Bowden, of Masterton, on January 3rd, on Bennett’s Hill. Despite the fact that ample room had been given accused to pass in liis car he had collided with Mr. Bowden’s car. Accused and another man were found asleep in the former’s car when the police arrived about 11 p.m. Sergeant Dyer said he saw accused two hours after the accident, and in his opinion, • Fuller was then not in a fit state to drive a car, Ho had been fined £5 in April, 1930, for a similar offence. ‘This is a case, Your Worships, where I must ask for the cancellation of the license,” said Sergeant Dyer, who added that men like accused were a menace on the road. Counsel for accused said his client had had only a small amount of liquor. He could not ask that accused’s license be not cancelled under the circumstances, but he hoped a heavy financial penalty would not be imposed as that would be a very great hardship to Fuller.