“TRIED TO STOP IT”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 June 1939, Page 6

“TRIED TO STOP IT”

INTOXICATED MOTORIST

FINED VEHICLE STARTED IN GEAR. CRASH AGAINST HOTEL. (Ey Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. When a constable walked down Manchester Street yesterday afternoon, he saw a man trying to crank a motor vehicle. Each time he tried he fell on one of the mudguards, and when he did finally get the vehicle to go it was evidently in gear, and shot backwards across the street and crashed against a hotel. The man fell on the street. These were the circumstances described by Sub-Inspector Packer when Robert Long Biggart appeared before Mr H. A. Young, S.M., in Court this morning. Biggart, a man aged 35, was charged with being intoxicated in charge of a motor vehicle. He pleaded guilty, and was fined £2O. His current licence was cancelled, and he was prohibited from obtaining another till May 31, 1941. For having no warrant of fitness, Biggart was convicted and ordered to pay costs. The vehicle was a van converted into a sleeping hut, said the sub-inspec-tor. Biggart had evidently obtained some liquor from a hotel, and he was so bad that his wife and family walked away.

Biggart explained that he had bought the vehicle because of its size, so that he could take his family out. Yesterday he called in to see an hotelkeeper. He drank very little as a rule, but as he was cold, the hotelkeepergave him some whisky, and as he was thirsty he had some beer. Biggart explained that when the vehicle went backwards he grabbed the bumper and tried to stop it.