Trial sequel to fatality in blazing car at Prebbleton

Press, 2 July 1983, Page 4

Trial sequel to fatality in blazing car at Prebbleton

A Prebbleton resident told, in the District Court yesterday, of rescuing one man from a blazing car after it had struck a telegraph pole beside his property in the early evening of November 6 last year. However, he was not able to rescue a second man because the car was a “ball of fire.” The rescued man, Andrew Keith Garland, aged 25, an apprentice mechanic, faced a charge of carelessly driving a car and causing the death of Ernest Allan Richardson, aged 36, in Trents Road, near Shands Road, Templeton. After hearing depositions or statements of evidence from prosecution witnesses, Messrs C. Fisk and R. M. Naysmith, Justices of the Peace, held there was sufficient evidence to commit the defendant for trial. They remanded him at large to July 15, pending a date for trial in the District Court. Sergeant J. E. Dwyer prosecuted, and Mr K. J. Osborn appeared for the defendant. Winston Joseph Ironmonger, retired, gave evidence of hearing a motorvehicle travelling “at full revs,” and then a thump as it hit a telegraph pole beside his property in Trents Road, at 6.05 p.m. on November 6. Rushing outside, he saw the car over a water-race in his paddock. The telegraph pole was broken and the bottom 4ft had been ripped out of the ground and was lying in his paddock. After telling others in his

family to call assistance he rushed to the car which was partially upside down and on fire. He forced open the driver’s side door, and crawled inside and saw two men standing inside. He grabbed one, the defendant, by the back of his jeans, pulled him to the floor, and slid him out. After dragging the defendant clear with assistance, Mr Ironmonger returned to the car but it was a ball of fire and there was no show of getting back inside again. Cross-examined, the witness said that while he tried to open the door he heard an explosion which he thought was a tyre, but found out later was the petrol tank. When he opened the door the two men were standing in the flames. It appeared they were trying to climb out of the top door. The car was a two-door vehicle. The men were trying to get out of the passenger’s door where the flames were. It was not really possible to see who was the driver and who was the passenger. He could only tell by their positions in the car. A nurse at Christchurch Hospital, Janet Elizabeth Mehrtens, gave evidence that while the defendant was being treated in intensive care she was asked by Klice to ask the defendant i name of the other person in the car. The defendant said it was Srnie, of Templeton, and hat they had been at the

“Golden Mile.” He said he had been driving the car. A pathologist. Dr L. L. Treadgold, said that a postmortem examination of Mr Richardson showed that death resulted from bums and multiple injuries. Police evidence was that a reconstruction of the scene showed that the car had failed to take a moderate left bend in Trents Road, 150 m before Shands Road. It had veered to its wrong side into a grass verge and travelled sideways until it struck the telegraph pole in the area of the driver’s door. It had then jumped a water race and stopped at a fence. The telegraph pole was broken into three pieces. Interviewed in hospital on December 8 the defendant told a constable he had driven to Mr Richardson’s place on the afternoon of the accident. They went to the “Golden Mile” hotel about 5 p.m. He had two or three bourbons there. He could not remember

where they went after leaving the hotel. More than likely they were returning to Mr Richardson’s. The defendant said he could remember nothing from the time he left the hotel until he opened his eyes in hospital, with doctors and nurses about him. He could not say for certain who was driving the car at the time. The defendant told the constable that he could not recall his rescue from the car. Mr Osborn called no defence evidence but submitted there was no case to answer. There had been no direct evidence whether the defendant or Mr Richardson had been driving at the time. He referred to evidence of the two having been rally driving together for several years, with the defendant being Mr Richardson’s codriver. There was a possibility that Mr Richardson was driving the vehicle at the time of the accident, he submitted.