LICENCE SUSPENDED

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 211, 22 September 1937, Page 6

LICENCE SUSPENDED

Maori Car-Driver Fined INTOXICATION CHARGE A request by counsel that a charge of- ordinary drunkenness should be substituted was refused by Mr. J. M'tiler, S.M., in the Hastings Magistrate's Oourt this morning when a Maori, Tawhiwhi Otene, was charged with being found in a state of intoxication while in charge of a motor-car. Otene was iined £7 with costs £1 and his licence suspended for three months, a further 'condition being that he take out a projiibition order. One month was allowed in which to pay. Otene was found by the police ' ' slumped ' ' over the driving wheel in a stationary car, said Senior-Sergeant G. SiVyer. He was in an advanced state of intoxication and praetically asleep. For the defcnce it was stated that defendant, who -was a returned soldier and did not carry liquor at allwell, had realised that he xvas unfit to drive and had arranged for another Maori to drive him home. It was while he was waiting in the car for this friend ttiai the poliee arrested him. Technically he was «An charge of the car, but counsel suggested that the charge might be reduced to one of ordinary drunkenness. The Magistrate did not agree with this suggestion, pointing out that Otene, in the state he was in, might have started driving. ' ' It would be uite a good thing if he were prohibited from taking drink," said 8enior--fc>ergeant Sivyer. ' 1 Occasionally he gets a little money from the Native Departinent and he comes into town and spends it on liquor."