WIFE'S CONDUCT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 34, 10 February 1943, Page 4

WIFE'S CONDUCT

DEFENDED DIVORCE ALLEGATIONS BY HUSBAND Allegations of adultery extending over two years and for a period with various unknown men in addition to one man named as Harry Jones, a Maori, were made by Ivan Unkovich, labourer (Mr. G. Skelton) in petitioning before Mr. Justice Callan and a jury to-day for divorce from his wife, Margaret Mary Unkovich (Mr. Dickson), who defended the case, and denied the allegations. The named co-respondent, Jones, entered no defence, and the court made an order to dispense with the unnamed corespondents. ' Outlining the petitioner's case, Mr. Skelton said that the parties were married in June, 1939, at 204, Pacific Building, by Alfred Hall Skelton. Prior to that they had lived for seven years as man and wife, pending the wife's divorce. Both had been previously married, the petitioner having two girls and a boy, and the respondent four boys. They went to live at Whangarei. and from there the wife visited Auckland for two or three months, in which time it was alleged that, unknown to her husband, she lived with the corespondent, Harry Jones, at a boarding house. Later the parties moved to Mangere, and there the wife left home ♦and a deed of separation was signed. There was a reconciliation, but later respondent again left home. Counsel said evidence would be given by a niece of respondent, a girl now 17 years old, who would say she was taken with respondent to various places where respondent misconducted herself in return for money. Petitioner, after giving the circumstances of the marriage, said he had had trouble with his wife owing to her drinking habits. . Under cross-examination, the witness said he ran a boarding house, and his wife's niece, the chief witness for him in this case, did the cooking. She was wearing his wife's engagement ring. (Proceeding).