Objection to Change in Charge
Page 31
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
OBJECTIONS were made in Greenock Sheriff Court last week to the relevancy of a complaint against a conductress for permitting overcrowding in a school bus. The original charge, made a week earlier, was that 82 children had•been permitted to travel in a bus with a nominal seating capacity of 56 passengers.
Mr. J. McLernan, for the conductress, pointed out that there was provision in the regulations that three children under 15 were equal to two adults in reckoning seating capacity. Consequently there was no offence.
The Procurator-Fiscal subsequently submitted a neW charge that the law had been contravened by permitting two children more than the number allowed to stand on the lower deck. He amended the seating capacity of the bus from 56 to 53.
Mr. McLernan maintained that the court could not now alter the character of the complaint if there were no offence in the first instance.
Sheriff-substitute J. C. Bonnar overruled the objection, and when Mr. McLernan tendered a plea of not guilty, the case was adjourned,
APPLICANT DID NOT APPEAR: "GREATEST DISCOURTESY"
MHEN an applicant for a B licence YV failed to appear at Carlisle last week, after the Northern Licensing Authority and counsel for objectors had waited half an hour, the Authority said: " It is a matter of the greatest discourtesy, and unfortunately the statute does not give me the power to award costs in a case. If so, I have no doubt I would do so."
The applicant was Mr. J. T. Alderson, Briarfield Tollbar. Distington. The hearing of his case in January had been adjourned to enable him to bring additional evidence. He had not replied to a notice, which was accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope, asking him whether he were going to appear.
BIRMINGHAM BILL DELAYED
DIRMING HAM'S Bill to legalize free LP and concessionary travel again failed to obtain a second reading in the House of Commons on Tuesday. It will now have to be debated later.