WIFE OF NO CASH VALUE.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 104, 1 May 1920, Page 19

WIFE OF NO CASH VALUE.

NO DAMAGES, NO COSTS. I Another "wife's cash value" case has cropped up in -London—this time before Mr. Justice Hill. He held it to be—nil. It was Sapper Leonard Bettany, R.E., who brought the petition for divorce and damages, citing Frederick Charles White, motor engineer, as co-respondent. Mrs. Bettany, it seemed, was at one time a waitress at the Tavistock Hotel, Covent Garden, and she was only eighteen when she was married. Joining the Army In 1914, Mr. Bettany went to the Dardanelles and Mesopotamia, returning in 1919. As he ba.! received affectionate letters, it was a great shock to him, he said, when he heard of her misconduct. Although a witness said she told White. on introduction, that Mrs. Bettany was the wife of a soldier. White himself now | stated that at the Tavistock Hotel she told i him that she was "Miss Bettany.' and was, twenty-two. She wore no wedding ring, and he bad no idea that she was married. I It was not until after the Stafford visit that she disclosed that she had a husband. i Mrs. Bettany herself having admitted that she passed as "Hiss Bettany," Mr. Justice Hill said there was no evidence that "White knew her to be married. "Looked at from the point of view of a wife's value," he added, "why. before White came on the scene she had ceased to be of any value to her husband." There was no case for damages or costs. Bettany was given a decree nisi. !