GIRL’S DEATH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 August 1938, Page 7

GIRL’S DEATH

FATALITY ON CARTERTON ROAD EVIDENCE AT THE INQUEST. CAR DRIVER EXONERATED. “To my mind it was purely accidental, and I have no doubt that the driver did his best and what he thought was correct at the time of the accident,” stated the District Coroner, Mr E. G. Eton, when giving his verdict at an inquest held yesterday morning at Carterton into the death of Veronica (Bonnie) Ireland, who was fatally injured when struck by a motor car driven by Douglas Walter Page at Clareville on the night of July 22. In returning a verdict of accidental death and exonerating the driver from blame, Mr Eton said that the evidence had been searching and had been brought forward in an explicit manner. He had no doubt that there were no signs or suggestion of liquor about the driver. The unfortunate occurrence was purely accidental, and he knew that at night the locality of the accident was a treacherous piece of road. Senior-Sergeant G. A. Doggett- conducted the proceedings for the police. Dr W. J. C. Wells, after describing the girl’s injuries, which he said were consistent with being struck by a moving body, said that the girl was lying well on the left hand side of the road going north. He spoke to the driver of the car and he was quite normal and rational. Mr S. K. Siddells, who appeared for the driver of the car: “Were there any signs of liquor about the driver?” Witness: “None whatever.” Betty Eileen Ireland, a cousin of deceased, told the Court that in company with Veronica Ireland, she left Carterton at about 9.15 p.m. to walk to a dance at Clareville. They walked on the left hand side of the road, nearer the grass than the bitumen. She was walking on the left hand side of her cousin and they noticed the car approaching from the rear when it was about 50 yards away. They moved over further to the left hand side. Another car with very dazzling head lights was coming from the north. Describing the actual accident, witness said: “We had our arms around one another . . . Bonnie was torn from my arm .... I looked up and she was knocked into the air, falling about fifteen yards from me .... The car went on for about fifty yards before it stopped. I was not knocked over but my right arm, the one I had round Bonnie, was injured.” The driver of the car came back, continued witness, arid wen for a doctor. She recalled hearing a vehicle being started up near Mr Hall’s residence but did not see any lights. The footpath on the other side of the road was all mud and pot holes and was not fit to walk on. To Mr Siddells witness said that the other car coming from the north-was about twenty yards away when the accident occurred. She did not know if Page had swerved violently to the right to try to avoid hitting them. In reply to Mr D. L. Taverner, representing the relatives of the dead girl, witness said she was quite sure they were walking on the gravel and not on the bitumen. She did not know what part of the car had struck her cousin.

Raymond Hall, a lorry driver, said he occupied a house on the west side of the road near - where the accident occurred. A friend of his, a Mr Johns, was about to leave when the accident took place. Mr Johns had just started up his lorry. He heard the two girls talking and saw them as they passed his gate. They appeared to be well over on the left side of the road. The lights were on in Mr Johns’s lorry as it approached the gate at an angle of about 45 degrees looking south. He thought Page’s car . was travelling at about 35 miles an hour and appeared to be on its correct side- of the road. (Continued on page 8.)