HOPE'S DEFENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 210, 6 September 1927, Page 5

HOPE'S DEFENCE.

CASE MAY GO FURTHER. PROBLEM OF IDENTITT. — It" is understood that steps are to be taken immediately in the Supreme Court to have the question of Hope's identity gone into. When the case was heard before Mr. J. W. Poynton, S.M., in 1925, Hope stated that ho was born at Watergate, Middle Hulton, in Bolton, Lancashire, in IS9I, and when be was about three years of age, went with his parents to live at Worsley, in Manchester. In August, 1914, he went to sea and was engaged continuously from that date until early 1010 as a third engineer and electrician in various ships. He asserted that he had never been in Sheffield in his life and did not know, and never had known the woman who alleged she was his wife.

In 1016 he was at sea, Uut could not produce his discharges for that year owing to the fact that in 1917 he was on board the steamship Victoria de L&rrinager in the North Sea when she was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine, and his discharges, together with all his personal belongings, went to the bottom of the sea, and had not been recovered.

Prisoner also stated that when he worked at the. Manchester docks after coming ashore in 1019 there was employed at the same job another man named John William Hope, who bore a striking resemblance to him, and who actually informed him that his (the other man's) wife resided in Sheffield. He further stated that he was married to his one and only wife, whose maiden name was Edith Alice Barnes, at Bolton registry office on July I-?, 1923.