PROSECUTION FAILS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20042, 14 September 1939, Page 11

PROSECUTION FAILS

INTOXICATION CHARGE EVII )EXCE IXCOXCLI'SIVE (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. “The certificate of the examining doctor shows that the accused had taken sufficient alcoholic liquor to impair his judgment while in charge of a ear, but before there can be a conviction there must be proof beyond reasonable doubt of actual intoxication because it is that with which the acused is charged,” said Mr. W. R. McKean, S.M., in giving a reserved decision on a charge of intoxication while in charge of a motor car preferred against Arnold Henry Arthur Cashel, aged 31, a salesman, in the Otahului Police Court on Monday.

The weight attaching to the medical witness’ training and experience. Mr. McKean continued, put him in the position of being able to recognise that there were degrees of intoxication. There was a borderline somewhere.

When a man was drunk he was intoxicated, but when he was intoxicated he was not necessarily drunk The accused was charged with actual intoxication, but he had not passed the borderline between sobriety and intoxication.

When a person, because of the consumption of alcohol had lost control of his faculties to such an extent, as to render him unfit to execute safely the occupation in which lie was engaged, he might be* considered to be intoxicated. When the evidence did not go so far as to show that, there could be no conviction.

The charge against the accused must, therefore, be dismised.