Dawson v The Chief of Police

• Jurisdiction: British Virgin Islands
• Court: Court of Appeal (British Virgin Islands)
• Judge: Gordon, J.
• Judgment Date: 04 November 1969
• Neutral Citation: VG 1969 CA 1
• Docket Number: Criminal Appeal No. of 1968
• Date: 04 November 1969

Court of Appeal

Hon. C.J., Gordon, J.A., St. Bernard, J.A. (Actg.)

Criminal Appeal No. of 1968

Dawson

and

The Chief of Police

Z. Butler for the Appellant

W. MacIintyre (Attorney General) for the Respondent

Road Traffic - Dangerous Driving-Vehicle and Road Traffic Ordinance, Cap 198 — Whether evidence supported the appellant's conviction for dangerous driving.

Facts: Evidence revealed that the appellant despite having a soft tyre tried to overtake the truck and crashed.

Held: The appellant failed to properly manoeuver this vehicle and the evidence supported the conviction. Appeal dismissed.

Gordon, J.

1 The appellant in this case was convicted on the 3rd April, 1968, of the dangerous driving of a motor vehicle, contrary to section 29, subsection (1) of the Vehicles and Road Traffic Ordinance, Chapter 198 of the Revised Edition of the Laws of this Territory. He was ordered to pay a fine of $25.00 and to be disqualified from driving for six months. He has appealed against this conviction.

2 On the 8th February, 1968, while driving his car, V.I. 832 along the West End public road, the appellant ran off the road, over a bank, and his car ended up on its side in the sea. According to the prosecution witness, Robert Dick-Read, the only eye-witness, he was driving along a stretch of road when, attracted by the sound of a screeching, and to use his own words, ‘a screeching of rubber tearing across the road’, he instinctively glanced in his driving mirror just in time to see a car careering off the road. He stated that he was 200 feet from the point where the car ran off the road, he immediately reversed to that point and arrived there the same time as another motorist, Ernest Tidswell. The former was in time to see the appellant getting out of car and go and sit on a stone. The latter, on his arrival was in time to see the appellant sitting on the stone. Both agreed that the appellant was then in a somewhat dazed and shocked state. Assistance was rendered him in due course and he was driven from the scene by Tidswell.

3 The Police arrived on the scene some hours after. They conducted investigations in the course of which photographs of the scene were taken. On the scene the appellant told Tidswell that he was about to overtake Dick-Read's truck which was ahead of him when the truck moved towards the middle of the road. He then applied his brakes and skidded off the road. On the roadway there were no skid marks, but there were two parallel lines six inches apart cut into the tarmac.

4 These lines were about six feet in length, and were suggestive of having been made by the rim of the wheel of the car. There was also a white...