CASE OF IDENTITY

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 82, 3 October 1929, Page 11

CASE OF IDENTITY

A STRANGE STOKY

SUCCESSFUL PETITION

The amazing story of John William Hope, of Onehunga, an immigrant who has found it; impossible to convince the police that he is not the husband of a Sheffield womanj to whom maintenance payments were due, was recalled in the House of Eepresentatives yesterday afternoon. : Hope had petitioned Parliament asking for an investigation into his alleged wrongful imprisonment, and the Public. Petitions Committee reported'that in its opinion Hope's request should be granted. The committee also ..expressed the opinion that the only way in which a full investigation could be made was to send Hope and Ms wife to England. The circumstances leading up to the presentation of the petition are unusual. In his petition, Hope claimed that he had been imprisoned on three occasions in New Zealand, for periods ranging f rom tw.o ■ months;_to six months, for the alleged disobedience of a maintenance order issued at Sheffield, England. When appearing before the Court in answer to the charge, Hojje always protested his innocence; claiming ho was not the John William Hope mentioned in the order and maintaining that he had never visited Sheffield. Petitioner mentioned that when he was at Manchester working in tho dry docks there was another'man named John William Hopo, who bore a remarkable resemblance to the petitioner and who actually informed the petitioner that his wife lived in Sheffield. Petitioner statod he was married to his one and only wife at tho Bolton registry office, England, in 1922, and in tho following year his wife left for New Zealand. In 1924 he appeared' bofore tho Magistrate's Court in Auckland, charged with failing to pay arrears of maintenance with respect to Mrs. Hope, of England, no protested his innocence, but the Magistrate held he was tho husband and sentenced him to imprisonment for six months. Later at Auckland ho was ngain sentenced to imprisonment. His people in England had supplied him with £75 to enablo him to return to England to clear tho mattor up, but the Government refused to give him a permit.' Ho had gpont the Si7s in sup-, port of his wife and himsolf and now ho had no money to enable him to proceed to England.