UNUSUAL DIVORCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 123, 27 May 1930, Page 8

UNUSUAL DIVORCE.

RESPONDENT GETS DECREE. UNHAPPY WAR MARRIAGE. NO APPEARANCE OF HUSBAND. A most unusual turn was given to a divorce case at the Supreme Court this morning, when a woman got a decree, although she was merely the respondent. It was a war marriage that did not turn out successfully. The petitioner was Benjamin Alexander Wallis, and the respondent was Catherine, Ellen Wallis. When the case was called Mr. F. W. Schramm, who appeared for the petitioner, asked leave to withdraw the netition, no reason being stated. The respondent, for whom Mr. Allan Moody appeared, had in her answer to the petition asked for relief, and his Honor asked Mr. Schramm if he could give any authority for leave to withdraw in such a case.

Mr. Schramm said he could not. In a somewhat similar case he had offered no evidence, and the judge had dismissed the petition. His Honor, pointed' out that as there was a counter petition the proper procedure would be for the petitioner to offer no evidence and then the other side would be heard.

Mr. Moody called Mrs. Wallis, who said she married her husband in England in 1019, he then being in the New Zealand Forces. There was one child. Wallis came out to New Zealand in 1919, and she followed in 1920. There was no one to meet her, but she saw Wallis at Napier. He never provided a home for her, and they never lived together. She had to work to maintain herself and the child, and she got a maintenance order against Wallis, but he only occasionally made payments. She lived at Napier, Fielding and other places, and eventually came to Auckland. She had no idea where her husband was at the present time.

•His Honor, in giving his decision, said that it was a case in which the respondent prayed for relief. The evidence showed that the petitioner had failed to maintain his "wife and child, and under Section 13 of the Act of 2928 the husband was now deemed to have been guilty of desertion without reasonable cause during the period the wife' had not been maintained. The period mentioned in the Act was five years, and the case had been made out. The petition would be dismissed and a decree nisi to be moved absolute after three months would be granted the respondent, who would also be given custody of the child. Petitioner was ordered to pay costs to respondent.