CHARGE AGAINST A CABMAN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2036, 22 March 1907, Page 1

CHARGE AGAINST A CABMAN.

At the. Thames a test case was brought by the police against G. .Ylolloy, a cubdriver, fo f r rfitiisdljS w> issist the police in conveying a prisoner to the lock-up. Scrgt. Darby stated that the case was brought under the borough by-laws, which provides a penalty of -iOs against my driver of a hackney carr.ifigo who refuses to drive tu any place within the prescribed boundary when ro-•|ucstc-d to do so. Evidence was given by Constable Berry to the iffccfc that on the evening of the Iliyl ■March he had cot^der-abk; difficulty in arresting a drunken man in the streets who was yiotent and resisted arrest, and seeing Mollov on his cab iust driving away ho called out to him to assist in conveying the prisoner to the lock-up. No notice was, however, taken of his call,and Molloy drove away to his stable, Witness then sent a young ntau ip. t\ie stable to ask Mo'lluy to return, which be refused to do, on the ground that the prisoner was mad. Mr Clendon, who appeared for the defendant, stated that the grounds of the. defence were, three —first, that the defendant was not the driver rtf a hackney carriage within the meaning >f the hy-luw. and produced the license under which he was plying an > stage carriage driver, and under which he contended defendant war. not liable: secondly. Mint, the can was not in u public or private street when he was asked by the messenger from Constable Berry to go to his. assistance, hut in his own stable, and that lie did not bear the constable calling to him previously when lie was driving away from the place where the arrest was made; and thirdly, that the excuse given by the defendant for not complying with the request (viz., that the man was rnatl amt )io would not take a madman into his cab) was a reasonable one, as provided for in the by-law. Evidence was given by the defendant and a young man who was with him on the cab, to the effect that he did not hear the constable call to him for assistance, and that afterwards when asked at the stable to go be was in the act of removing the horses 'from the cal,, The cqsu was dismissed on the grounds that there was a certain amount of doubt as to whether or not the defendant had heard the constable call to him in the street, and that the by-taw did not compel him to turn out again from the stable, us he was not then in any street or road, hut iii a private place. . ...