MOTORIST GUILTY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20000, 27 July 1939, Page 7

MOTORIST GUILTY

NEGLIGENT DRIVING TRIPLE FATALITY SEQUEL (Per Press Association.) HAMILTON, this day. Following a visit to the scene of the accident this morning, a jury returned a verdict of guilty in a case in the Supreme Court at Hamilton, in which Louis Cario Appleton, aged 24, a carrying contractor, was charged with reckless driving causing the death of three people. During the trial evidence was given of the accused stopping at four hotels from Te Puke to Te Aroha and thence to Auckland by way of Cambridge and Hamilton and also of excessive speeding at times during the journey and the accident occurring on a bend The accused was on the wrong side of the road at Ohinewai when travelling at high speed. For the defence, it was claimed that the accused was forced to the wrong side of the road on the corner because the other car was first on its incorrect side. A head-on collision occurred in which three Wellington people, John Staples, aged 59, a boot manufacturer, his wife, Florence Staples, aged 46, and Miss Frances Carnegie, aged 22, were killed, and Miss Carnegie’s fiance, the driver of the car, Arthur Staples, seriously injured. Three passengers in the coupe driven by the accused were all slightly injured, both cai's being practically a total wreck. "The accused was remanded for sentence.