MANSLAUGHTER CHARGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 October 1943, Page 4

MANSLAUGHTER CHARGE

ENGINE DRIVER ON TRIAL. SEQUEL TO RAILWAY DISASTER. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, October 25. The trial of John Patrick Alphonsus Corcoran, aged 51, on a charge of manslaughter, arising out of the railway accident between Hyde and Middlemarch on June 4 last, was continued in the Supreme Court today, before Mr Justice Kennedy. The jury visited the Hillside workshops, where an inspection of the engine and the wreckage of the train occupied the whole of the morning. “Are speedometers necessary to enable drivers to judge speed?” the crown prosecutor, Mr Adams, asked Albert Stanton, railway locomotive foreman, Dunedin, when he continued his evidence. Witness replied that he would not say they were necessary, but with high-speed trains they would be an advantage. Mr Anderson (for the defence): Have you ever heard of a driver being brought before his superiors and reprimanded for making up time on a run? Witness: I recollect one such case on the Central Otago line some months ago. Witness added that the position of the controls after the derailment indicated that the engine was not under steam at the time of the accident, and that it was what was known as “drifting.” The hearing was adjourned till tomorrow.