Lorry-speeding Case—Appeal Allowed
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AKING'S Bench Divisional Court composed of Lord Hewart and Justices Charles and Macnaghten, last Monday, allowed the appeal of Mr. William Brighty, a lorry driver, against a finding of Cambridge Justices that, on January 3 last, he drove his lorry in a Cambridge road at a speed above its legal maximum of 20 m.p.h. Mr. Brighty had been fined 20s. and his licence had been endorsed with a conviction.
Mr. M. A. King-Hamilton, appearing for Mr. Brighty, said that, according to the case stated, P.C. Long saw the lorry coming at a speed which he estimated at 35 m.p.h. to 40 m.p.h. Ile had it under observation for about 350 yds., and the driver obeyed his signal to stop within 10 yds. At the same time P.C. Murphy came up on his cycle. The lorry had passed him some distance back and he said its speed, then, was about 35 m.p.h. The distance between the spot where the lorry passed P.C. Murphy and the place where P.C. Long stopped it was about 750 yds.
For Mr. Brighty it was contended that, inasmuch as the evidence of each constable related to a different place, the evidence of excessive speed was the
opinion of one constable only, and there could not be a conviction by virtue of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, Section 10 (3) as substituted by the Act of 1934, Section 2 (3).
The magistrates, however, held that as the two policemen had thd lorry under observation along the same stretch of road the evidence of each was such as constituted, in law, corroborationof the other sufficient to enable them to consider that there was evidence available from more than one witness.
Mr. King-Hamilton contested that finding, submitting that the evidence of speed could only be accepted as corroborated when both constables spoke as to the speed of the vehicle over the same distance of road at the same period of time. Here the officers spoke of the speed over different parts of the road at different times.
Mr. E. Garth Moore argued the case for the Chief Constable of Cambridge (Mr. R. J. Pearson), and the Court allowed the appeal with costs, holding that the contention for the lorry driver should prevail. The case was remitted to the justices with the direction that the conviction could not stand.