SPITE ALLEGED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 230, 28 September 1935, Page 12

SPITE ALLEGED.

SON SEEKS MAINTENANCE.

UNUSUAL CHRISTCHURCH CASE,

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day.

Evidence for the defence in the case at the Magistrate's Court in which Frederick Ernest Green, of Sydney, a son of R. E. Green, the donor of the clock towers at Sumner and New Brighton, claimed maintenance on the ground that he wns destitute, waV heard yesterday afternoon. An allegation that R. E. Green had deliberately deprived himself of money to vent spite on his family was made by Mr. W. F. Tracy, counsel for Cecil Aubrey Green, another son, who was the informant. R. E. Green was represented by Mr. D. W. Russell.

Charles John Beken . said he had knowp' Green f° r -50 years, and knew that he had had a quarrel with his family. Green had said that he would buy an annuity and get rid of the rest of his" money. It was no use making a will' for his family to upset.

Mr. Russell denied : that defendant had stripped himself of all his assets to deprive his family of any benefits they might obtain. * Defendant's posh tiott was much different'now from what it had been at the time .of the previous Couft'ease. He had. an annuity of £130 0/8, from which he paid . maintenance at £1" a week by order of . the Court to one relative. He had another* annuity when -he was previously before , the Court, but had since then sold it for £400, and proposed to take out an annuity for the protection of his wife. This would return £78 a year, and their total income would be only £156 6/8, out of which they had to pay £78 for a housemaid. Mrs. Green was not in good health, and money was needed for medicines and so on. Kate Alicia Robena Stevens, the wife of a relief worker, admitted .that she and her daughter had advanced £400 to defendant to buy an annuity for his wife. "I am satisfied that Frederick Ernest Green is a ; destitute person," said the magistrate in summing up, "and the only other question is the ability of defendant to contribute toward the maintenance'.of his son. I am not at all satisfied' with defendant's attitude about the'£4oo, and I have very grave doubts of .his'bona fides ab'put providing an annuity, for his wife." ■ t The ' magistrate adjourned the case until October '14 to see what defendant did with the £400.