DISQUALIFIED DRIVER

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30955, 11 January 1966, Page 6

DISQUALIFIED DRIVER

Subterfuge Failed

A man who had “sold” his car to himself—using a fictitious name and particulars—in order to avoid detection for driving while disqualified was found out in Christchurch on January 7, and appeared in the Magistrate's Court yesterday. He is Reginald Wally Ruffell, aged 39, a painter, who pleaded guilty before Mr H. J. Evans, S.M., to disqualified driving, and also faced a second charge of converting a trailer, valued at £55, in Wellington on November 29. Ruffell was disqualified from driving for a further year on the first charge, and asked for a remand to January 18 on the second in order to seek legal advice. The Magistrate, saying that | it was an offence of some seriousness, said he, too, wanted a remand before considering sentence, and fixed the date at January 20. He also called for a probation report. Ruffell, according to Sergeant P. J. Alty, had been disqualified at Wellington from driving for four years, but had recently come to Christchurch. He claimed to have been heavily in debt, with six dependent children, and to clear himself ot debt had to use his car in carrying out painting work. Ruffell told the Magistrate that he had carried out his subterfuge over the car partly so that his wife from whom he had been divorced, and was causing him some trouble could not trace him. As soon as he had found out he was committing a criminal offence with such subterfuge, he had had the car re-registered in his own name, Ruffell said.