APPEAL ALLOWED

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21320, 13 November 1934, Page 15

APPEAL ALLOWED

MAGISTRATE'S DECISION NOT UPHELD CASE IN SUPREME COURT An appeal by Ernest Edward Edmonds against two orders made in the Magistrate's Court was .upheld in a judgment delivered by his, Honour Mr Justice Johnston in the Supreme Court yesterday. The case was heard on October 5, when Mr R. L. Saunders appeared for the appellant, and Mr W. J. Hunter for the respondent, Ethel Maud Edmonds. Edmonds appealed under Part X. of the Justices of the Peace Act,. 1927, from a magistrate's order of May 21, 1934, increasing from £2 to £2 10s a week the amount payable by appellant to respondent under a maintenance order dated March 30, 1920; and under Part IX. from an order of the same date made by the same magistrate varying a prior charging order dated March 30, 1920, by which' certain assets of the appellant acquired since the charging order were charged with payment of the increased maintenance. Both orders were made under the provisions of the Destitute Persons Act, 1910. "Respondent's evidence and her demeanour in the witness box were unsatisfactory," said his Honour, in giving judgment. Unless she was prepared to place her financial position fully and frankly before the court, she could not succeed. She had not shown a change of her circumstances by which the amount allowed her for maintenance was now too small to meet her needs. She rested her claim solely on improvement in her husband's position. This, by itself, was insufficient, at any rate if the respondent had deliberately impoverished herself or refused to disclose her true position. The appeal would therefore have to be allowed.