INTOXICATED MOTORISTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 April 1938, Page 8

INTOXICATED MOTORISTS

NUMBER OF CASES CHRISTCHURCH ACCUSED FINED CHRISTCHURCH, April 4. Six men were charged, today with intoxication while in charge of cars. At Christchurch George Manifold Wilton, dental mechanic, aged 37, was fined £3O, his licence was cancelled and endorsed, and he was declared unfit to hold another for three years. Thomas Sydney McGuire, labourer, aged 25, was fined £lO and his licence was cancelled for 12 months. William Hayes, farmer, aged 52, was fined £2O and his licence was cancelled for 12 months. Philip Bernard Percasky, labourer, aged 22, was fined £lO and his licence was cancelled for 12 months.

At Lyttelton John Francis Smith and Sydney Herbert Green, labourers, who were jointly charged, were remanded until Wednesday.

FINE OF £lO A PUGNACIOUS ACCUSED DUNEDIN, April 4. In the S.M. Court, Sydney Tasman. Smart admitted having been in charge of a motor car while in a state of intoxication. \ The police stated that Smart was involved in a collision on the Main South Road near Otokia. When a constable arrived on the scene he became pugnacious, using obscene language. Smart was fined £lO and was prohibited from driving a car for a year, and was also fined for having used obscene language. The Magistrate indicated that the accused would be permitted to apply for a certificate to drive within a nolicence area after a lapse of six months. FOURTH OFFENCE COUNTY COUNCILLOR FINED BLENHEIM, April 4. Donald McLean, farmer, Amberley, a member of the Kowai County Council, pleaded guilty before Justices of the Peace this morning to a charge of having been intoxicated in charge of a motor car at Spring Creek on Saturday afternoon. The police stated that it was his fourth offence, the other three having been in Christchurch, two in 1927 and one in 1931. McLean arrived at Blenheim from Amberley on Saturday at noon with a quantity of liquor in the car. He was already under the influence of liquor. He sought to be supplied at Spring Crdek, but the barman refused, as the accused was driving a car. McLean became offensive and aimed a blow at the man, who advised him to leave. In August, 1927 McLean was fined £lO and four months later he was sentenced to 14 days’ imprisonment. On a third conviction in 1931 he was fined £lO and his licence was cancelled for two years. Council for the defendant, in appealing for leniency, said that McLean proposed seeking re-election to the county council and imprisonment would ruin his chances.

. The bench, in imposing a fine of £3O and two years’ disqualification, said that the defendant was apparently a person of some service to the community. A term of imprisonment would cause him to suffer considerably in view of the approaching local body elections.

MAORI FINED MAGISTRATE ACCEPTS STATEMENT WANGANUI, April 4. “I accept defendant’s statement that he did not intend to drive the car and was only technically in charge. I hope that fact will be made known so that the public will not get a wrong impression of the way the court deals with these cases,” commented Mr J. H. Salmon, S.M., in the Magistrates’ Court, Wanganui, today, when imposing a fine of £5, with costs, on a Maori, Kingi Taru Tupe. He was charged with being found in a state of intoxication while in charge of a car in Polson Street on April 2.