PRIORITY OF CHARGES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 December 1938, Page 7

PRIORITY OF CHARGES

‘ ' ♦ CASE AGAINST MOTORIST. POLICE REQUEST REJECTED BY MAGISTRATE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, December 19. A denial that the police had ever turned prosecutions into persecutions was made by Sub-Inspector Packer in the ’Magistrates’ Court today during the hearing of legal argument in a case in which John May de,Brotherton Morgan, of Fairfield Avenue, was charged with driving negligently in Opawa Road on December 9, thus causing the death of Henry Charles Gardner. Morgan was further charged with driving his car in Opawa Road on December 9 at a speed which might have been dangerous to the public. Mr C. S. Thomas appeared for Morgan. Sub-Inspector Packer asked that the latter charge, a summary one, should be dealt with before the indictable one. He quoted extensively from legal cases to support his request, but Mr E. C. Levvey, S.M., ruled against him and ordered that the indictable charge, that of causing death, should be proceeded with. The magistrate said that it was the first time such a point had been raised during his experience on the Bench. If his decision was not good law he would be very glad if the matter was gone on with and settled. The police, continued the sub-inspec-tor, had at no time persecuted when they had prosecuted. Mr Thomas said that the sub-inspec-tor's remarks were apparently the aftermath of references Mr Thomas had made in Court some time ago. Counsel said he still considered it wrong in principle for a man who had been acquitted in the Supreme Court to be brought back to the Magistrates’ Court for conviction. The application the sub-inspector was now making was worse than the practice he had already mentioned. It was a new idea, but what accused was going to fight a minor charge in the Magistrates’ Court and show his hand? The magistrate admitted that if he were appearing in a case he would not do so. Mr Thomas: “No one would do it. Even if the fact was not mentioned in the Supreme Court the world would know that an experienced magistrate had convicted the man.” The magistrate ruled in favour of Mr Thomas and the indictable charge was proceeded with.