DRUNK IN CAR

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20069, 16 October 1939, Page 6

DRUNK IN CAR

MAORI DRIVER FINED PENALTY OF £5 A Maori labourer, Kopai Brown, aged 43, married, was convicted and fined £5 and his license cancelled for a year when he appeared this "morning in the Police. Court before Messrs. T. Corson and E. Harris, J.P.s, on a charge of having been found drunk in charge of a motor vehicle on Saturday afternoon in Wainui road. In making their decision the Bench said they took into account, the fact that the accused, as stated by his counsel, Mr. A. A. Whitehead, was an honest, hard-working man and was said in the medical report to be not in a bad state of intoxication. Prosecuting, .Senior-Sergeant J. F. H. Macnamara said that Constable G. Neal arrested the accused at 4.35 p.m. on Saturday in Wainui road after complaints had been received by the police that a car was being driven through the Wainui township in an erratic manner. Dr. H. Angell issued a certificate to the effect that the accused had had sufficient liquor to affect his judgment and was therefore not in a fit state to drive. On the accused’s behalf, Mr. Whitehead said the case was not a serious one. Brown was in regular employment on a station on the East Coast and used his car only once a month to visit relatives at Manutuke. As a general rule he was accustomed to have three drinks on the journey to town, one at Whangara and two at Tatapouri. The accused was certain that that quantity of liquor did not affect him in the slightest, and said he had never been drunk in his life. He was an honest, hard-working Maori with a family of seven children.. A plea for leniency was made by Mr. Whitehead.