BIGAMY ALLEGED.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 163, 12 July 1928, Page 3

BIGAMY ALLEGED.

MAN'S TWO STATEMENTS.

POLICE PRODUCE ADMISSIONS

ACCUSED PLEADS NOT GUILTY.

Although be confessed to the police in 1924 that he had committed the crime of bigamy, Ernest Heap (48), when charged with that offence at the Police Court this morning, pleaded not guilty, reserved his defence, and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial.

Chief Detective Hammond prosecuted. Accused was represented bv Mr. J. J. Sullivan.

Evidence was given that accused was married at Old Trafford, Manchester, England, on September 17. 1904, a copy of the marriage certificate being produced. A middle-aged woman afterwards stated that she went through the form of marriage with Heap at Wliakatane on Mav 7, 1919.

Detective Sergeant Doyle produced & statement which, he said, had been made voluntarily and signed by accused! In this he said that he was married at Old Trafford in 1904. and left for Xew Zealand on Good Friday, I9(R He left his wife and one child in England, but after IS months' residence in the Dominion he sent his wife sufficient ruonev for her faie to New Zealand. She arrived here in 1910, and together they lived at Nelson until 1913. In the meantime another child was born. His relations with his wife were not happv owing to the fact that she disliked NewZealand. Without his knowledge his wife returned to England in 1913, and since then he had not heard from her. Three weeks after his second marriage at Whakatane in May of 1924 accused received a letter from his sister savin* that his first wife had called upon her. This worried him, and he went to the police and told them everything.