LONG DIVORCE CASE.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 257, 30 October 1929, Page 14

LONG DIVORCE CASE.

THE BAKEWELL SUIT.

three weeks before cottrt

former husband named as

CO-RESPONDENT,

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, October 25

Record divorce suit of the year is now being fought out in the Sydney Divorce Court, where Mr. Justice Owen, chief judge in divorce, is hearing the petition of Tom St. Aubins Bakewell, asking for divorce from his wife, Mary Gwendoline Bakewell, on the grounds of misconduct.

The hearing of the case is already in its third week, and it is likely that it will extend to yet another week, as several witnesses have yet to be examined, and counsel have to review many pages of evidence in their address to the judge. Costs in the case have reached nearly £6000, and many witnesses have been examined. Mary Gwendoline Bakewell, who has presented a cross petition for divorce against her husband, also on grounds of misconduct, has been in the witness box for eight days. Several remarkable features of the case are that Mr. Bakewell is alleging misconduct against his wife with her former husband, Philip James Bruell, by whom she was divorced three years ago, and married Bakewell. In the former divorce action brought by Bruell against his wife, then Mary Gwendoline Bruell, Bakewell was cited as co-respondent. Amazing allegations have been made by tho various parties in the suit. Mrs. Bakewell said that she had watched her husband meet a nurse from a private hospital in a Sydney picture show, and had followed them to a hotel. There she had confronted them, and it was arranged that the nurse should go to New Zealand, Mrs. Bakewell paying her fare and giving her £5 for expenses. Bakewell alleges that his wife was a heavy drinker, and had misconducted herself with her former husband, Bruell, who had been a boarder at Mrs. Bakewell's after she had separated from him (Bakewell). Mrs. Bakewell has denied many parts of the evidence which she gave in the divorce action brought by her former husband, Bruell, three years ago. During her eight days in the box, the Court has been crowded, and big crowds have assembled outside the Courthouse to gain a view of the principals in the case.