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Tuesday 18 June 1946 - Boy of 13 fined for driving tractor on road

Category Wickhamford
Publication
Gloucestershire Echo
Transcription of article

BOY OF 13 FINED FOR DRIVING TRACTOR ON ROAD

A 13-year-old boy with mechanical aptitude, who was stated to have done a considerable amount of tractor ploughing on his father's land and also to have ploughed about 20 acres of land for his schoolmaster, appeared at Evesham County Petty Sessions on Monday for driving a tractor on the highway, and for driving uninsured.

Mr J. Wythen Roberts, who defended the boy and also 18-year-old John Leslie Summers, of Wickhamford, near Evesham, who was summoned for permitting the offences, said that the boy appeared to be very precocious, and it was apparently because Summers knew his ability to drive the tractor that he was foolish enough to allow him to drive on the road.

WITH TRAILER

P.C. Haines said that he saw the boy drive a Ford 25-cwt farm tractor with a trailer attached out of Golden-lane, Wickhamford, into Willersey-road on May 2.  Summers said "I thought I would let him drive for a bit as it was on a quiet road but I knew it should not be done."

The boy was fined £1 for each offence, and Summers was fined £2 for permitting him to use the tractor while uninsured.  Summers was not disqualified from driving owing to the nature of his employment, but the Chairman of the Bench said the offences were very serious.