FAILURE TO REPORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 October 1938, Page 8

FAILURE TO REPORT

ACCIDENT IN WHICH WOMAN WAS INJURED CANTERBURY FARMER SENT TO GAOL i — (By Telegraph—Press Association.) TIMARU, This Day, Lachlan John Grant, a well-known Clandeboye farmer and a prominent member of South Canterbury organisations, was sentenced this morning by Mr Justice Northcroft to six months’ imprisonment with hard labour on a charge of failing to stop and give all practicable assistance after an accident. The charge arose out of the finding of Mrs Kate Maxwell Johnson on the roadside on the evening of June 21. Eight miles away. Grant’s car ran into a telegraph pole, and it was tne inference of the prosecution that the car had been deliberately run into the pole to explain the damage done to the car when it struck the woman, who had a leg fractured. Glass found in the vicinity of the woman, and some found near the pole was fitted together in a successful effort to reconstruct portion of a lamp glass of accused's car. The Judge commented on the manner in which the work was executed, and the clear way in which the case was presented. Counsel suggested that a monetary penalty should be imposed, but Mr Justice Northcroft refused on the grounds that'it would be making a discrimination between a man of means and persons in poorer circumstances.