Magistrate’s Court Fined £10 For Passing On Left In 55 m.p.h. Zone

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31001, 5 March 1966, Page 23

Magistrate’s Court Fined £10 For Passing On Left In 55 m.p.h. Zone

"I m prepared to accept that the defendant in his driving had done something which is common practice but is unlawful,” Mr E. A. Lee, S.M.. said in the Magistrate's Court yesterday when he fined Malcolm Graeme Beaven. aged 21, a crane-driver (Mr D. M. Palmer) £lO on a charge of careless driving at the inV -section of Springs road and * Ellesmere Junction road on December 12. Beaven pleaded not guilty. Senior-Sergeant G. M. Cleary said the incident had occurred in a 55 m.p.h. area. The allegations against Beaven were that he had overtaken on the left when he should not have done so, and the speed at which he had travelled was excessive. Mrs Janet Mary Meadows, of Springston, said she was travelling along Springs road toward Christchurch when she pulled to the centre of the load to pass a sports car leaving Lincoln College. At the intersection she had signalled a right hand turn and had stopped just to the left of the road's centre line. Mrs Helen Mary Newell, also of Springston, said she had been travelling along Springs road away from Christchurch and on approaching the intersection had signalled her intention to turn right. She had seen no other vehicle behind Mrs Meadow-s’ car and had commenced her turn when she was struck on the left hand side of her vehicle by a sports car. Constable James O'Connell Boyd, of the Lincoln police, said he had gone to the accident scene and there had found skid marks 51ft in length which ended beneath the sports car near the place where both Mrs Newell and Beaven agreed had been the point of impact. Beaven said in evidence that he left Lincoln College in his sports car and turned toward the intersection. In the middle of the intersection a car was stopped which was indicating a right hand turn. Beaven said he had passed that car on the left when he noticed Mrs Newell turning right. He braked but slid into her car. Shingle on the roadway had caused his car to skid so far. FINED £8 Charles Frederick Harvey, aged 53 a fishmonger (Mr G. R. Lascelles), pleaded guilty to a charge of carelessly using a motor vehicle on November 27. He was convicted and fined £6. A charge of failing to report damage was withdrawn by consent. CHARGE DISMISSED “In the absence of proof whether the motor-cycle was lighted, whether a reasonably prudent and careful motorist would have seen an unlighted vehicle at this particular intersection, whether Stechman was making a turn or the direction he was travelling, I must give the defendant the benefit of the doubt and the information will be dismissed,” the Magistrate said after the hearing of a charge against Russell James Rogers, aged 18, a grocer. Rogers (Mr C B. Atkinson) had pleaded not guilty to a charge that on November 3 at the intersection of River road and Stanmore road he had used a motor vehicle carelessly about 10 p.m. causing the death of Andrew Charles Stechman. Evidence was given that Rogers' van was damaged about the right front mudguard and that the front of Steehman’s motor-cycle had been damaged. (Before Mr K. H. J. Headifen, S.M.) ‘‘AN ABRUPT HALT” As a result of a motorist striking a wire tow-rope linking two trucks, having attempted to pass between them without realising the second truck was being towed, John Edward Fairbrother, the driver of the towing truck, was charged with failing to give way to the car. The accident happened on a very wet night in September last, at the intersectidn of Colombo and Brougham streets. Evidence was given that Fairbrother's truck, travelling in Brougham street, had almost cleared the intersection when the motorist passed behind it, assuming that the second truck, just entering the intersection, would give way to him in accordance with the give-way signs on Brougham street. But the motorist was brought to an abrupt halt by the wire rope, the impact causing a girl passenger in the car to cut her forehead in a bump on the windscreen.

Fairbrother, defended by Mr M. J. Glue, pleaded not guilty to failing to give way at the signs.

He gave evidence that the car. on his left, was at the end of Sydenham Park—more than 100 yards away—as he crossed Colombo street, and that he had judged he had time to get the towed truck across.

After commenting on the conflicting evidence of the car’s speed, the Magistrate ruled that there was doubt that it was “approaching the intersection” when Fairbrother was towing the second truck across, and that the charge of failing to give way to it must therefore be dismissed. The Magistrate held it proved that the tow rope bore the regulation white flag in the middle, illuminated by the lights of the towed truck. DISQUALIFIED DRIVING BRINGS GAOL A second appearance for driving while disqualified showed that Wayne Douglas Churchward, aged 24, a salesman, had been treating Court orders with contempt, said the Magistrate, when sentencing him to one month’s imprisonment. “I’m not prepared to have that—you can count yourself lucky it’s not three months’ imprisonment,” the Magistrate told him. Churchward, a passenger in a car, had driven the vehicle in the Christchurch-Lyttelton road tunnel on December 1, after the girl driver had been nervous about piloting it through. Less than nine months’ ago. said the Magistrate, Churchward had been placed on two years’ probation for burglary, and then prohibited from driving until 1968 for an offence of driving while disqualified. “A person with the slightest respect for Court orders would have refrained from driving from then on,” the Magistrate said. “If you offend again, I’ll see that you are put off thf road for considerably longer than 1968.” Mr G. R. Lascelles, for Churchward, had submitted that there had been mitigating circum stances for both his present and past driving offences. CHARGE REDUCED After overtaking cars in Papanui road at 45 miles an hour, and swerving from side to side of the road, Paul Winston Freer, a sawmill worker, was charged with dangerous driving —but on the charge being reduced to one of careless driving, he pleaded guilty, and was convicted and fined £l5. Freer’s explanation for his speed and swerving, as put forward by Mr R. G. Blunt, was that he was almost out of petrol, and had been trying to “swish it around in his tank.” CHARGE DISMISSED After submissions by Mr R. G. Blunt, a charge of falling to give way to pedestrians crossing at the Cashel street-Oxford terrace traffic lights, against Godfrey Athol Anderson, a bus driver, was dismissed, without defence evidence being heard. Anderson had been charged under a section of the Traffic Regulations applying to vehicles turning at light-controlled intersections. but the Magistrate held that Anderson had not been changing direction. (Before Mr E. S. J. Crutchley, S.M.) GAOL FOR ASSAULT For an assault on his brother-in-law, Roderique John Arthur McKenzie, aged 26, a shop manager, and described in the court as an amateur boxer, was sentenced to seven days’ imprisonment. (Before Mr H. J. Evans, S.M.) UNLAWFUL SEXUAL INTERCOURSE A 17-year-old schoolboy, Cornelus Bernadus van den Broek, who pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old girl on January 8, was convicted and fined £l5, with an order for immediate payment. Sergeant V. F. Townshend said that the accused and a friend had driven the girl in a car to a lane at Bromley, where the offence took place. The girl later complained to the police, but said she had been a willing party. The accused, when interviewed, admitted that he knew the girl was only 14. Van den Broek had been in New Zealand for three and a half years, said Sergeant Townshend, but was soon to leave with his fam illy for the United States, for good. SUSPENDED SENTENCE After two persons had complained to the police about a man begging for money in Latimer square on March 3, a constable arrested Frank Dean, aged 51, a kitchen-hand, and found him in possession of a considerable sum of small! change, s , aid Sergeant Townshend. Dean, who claimed he was working at the time, pleaded guilty. He told the Magistrate he had merely tried to “bor-* row” money for a taxi fare. “You’ve got to stop doing this,” saiid the Magistrate, in convicting Dean and ordering him to come up for sentence, if called on, within six months. FOUND DRUNK A 45-year-old factory hand, Thomas Shearer, who pleaded not guilty to being found drunk in Cashel street on March 3, was convicted and fined £2, in default four days’ imprisonment. The Magistrate ordered immediate payment of the fine.

Shearer, who conducted Ms own defence, admitted two convictions for drunkenness in the last six months.

THEFT CHARGE Ronald Nicholas Tiki, aged 30. a metal polisher, appeared on a charge of the theft of a transistor radio, valued at £l9, the property of Sharon Wi'lson, on February 18. On the application of Mr K. N. Ham pion. Tiki was remanded to March 10. TRAFFIC OFFENCES In traffic prosecutions brought by the police, convictions were entered and fines imposed as follows, with £1 10s Court costs in each case: Careless use of a motorvehicle: Kenneth Owen Tiney, £10; Donald Stuart Edward, £lO, licence cancelled for six months (failed to stop after accident, £lO, licence cancelled for stx months to be served concurrently with previous period of cancellation, failed to ascertain if any person was injured, costs only); Rodney John Co-lumbus, £7 10s. Failed to give way to the right: Annie Margaret Wi-lson, £3 10s, licence cancelled for two months; Gordon Bruce, £7 10=s, licence cancelled for one month: Harold Wa'llace McGregor, £lO, licence cancelled for one month; Murray James Parker, £lO. Failed to stop at compulsory stop: Jack Douglas MtCCer, £6: licence cancelled for one month; Denis Robert Newton, £7 10s, licence cancelled for one month Failed to report damage in 48 hours. David James McWhinnde, £2 10s. No driver’s licence: Frank Bennett, £lO. Failled to give way at traffic lights: May Alyce Wilmhurst £6.