INTOXICATED MOTORISTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 April 1938, Page 9

INTOXICATED MOTORISTS

GAOL SENTENCES IMPOSED. MAGISTRATE'S COMMENTS. By Telegraph.—Press Association, HAMILTON, Ajril 20. “I have pointed out the seriousness of these offences many times before," said Mr S. L. Paterson, S.M., in passing sentences of imprisonment on motorists charged with intoxication. He added that the Press had urged magistrates generally to become determined in the exercise of their powers to the full in the public interest so that the evil of motorists driving cars when intoxicated might soon be stamped out. “I am going to see that these offences are stopped if possible,” he said.

Montague Dowding Powell, aged 30, taxi-driver, Hamilton, was charged with having been intoxicated in charge of a taxi at Frankton Junction on Sunday night. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 14 days’ imprisonment and his driver’s licence was cancelled until June 1, 1940. The accused had three large bottles of beer jn his taxi when he was arrested on a stand at the Frankton railway station at 2.35 o’clock in the morning, said Sergeant Kelly. Arrested in Anglesea Street on Monday, George Leonard Brooks, aged 21, baker’s van driver, Morrinsville, was also intoxicated in charge of a motor vehicle. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to seven days’ imprisonment, and his licence was cancelled until June 1, 1940.

“You are a young man,” the magistrate told the accused, “but you should have more control over yourself. While you were driving that car you were a danger to other drivers and a menace to pedestrians. If you were older I would make the term of imprison ment longer.”