Zimpapers Logo

The Herald, September 16, 1980  

A MAN who walked away from a fatal accident and went to bed was yesterday fined $200 (or 20 days) by the magistrate’s court here for culpable homicide.  

The magistrate, Mr Jack Riley, also prohibited William Gerard Dorian from driving for 12 months, and cancelled his driver’s licence.  

He ordered that any driving licence issued within five years of that period be endorsed.  

Dorian of 13 Highbury Road, Tegela, Bulawayo pleaded guilty to the charge of culpable homicide and not guilty to the alternative charge of reckless driving.  

In an agreed statement of facts, the court heard that on June 6, Dorian and a friend, Mr Athol Brebner Anderson, who both were working in Shabani, drove to Bulawayo in a borrowed car, arriving at 7pm.  

At about 4am, after an evening of drinking and dancing, Dorian and Anderson left for Shabani.  

Dorian, who was driving, said he remembered passing through Essexvale when “he closed his eyes for a while”, and was startled by a bump.  

He remembered nothing of the incident after that. He hitched a lift back to Shabani and went directly to bed.  

The next day, it was only after neither the car nor the deceased could be found that he remembered the incident.  

At Shabani police station he was told that Anderson had been found dead that morning at the scene of the crash.  

In passing the sentence, Mr Riley said he had taken into account the fact that Dorian had been imprisoned for more than five weeks before being brought to trial.  

LESSONS FOR TODAY 

Excessive drinking is bad because it can impair one’s vision and decision-making. The man in the story was so drunk that he failed to remember what had happened the previous night.  

Drinking and driving is bad. It can impair one’s driving abilities. Dorian admitted to have slept while driving and was only awoken by a bump and he never bothered to check what had caused the bump.  

Punitive sentences such as the one imposed on Dorian are necessary to curb reckless driving.