HUSBAND GRANTED DECREE NISI

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25308, 7 October 1947, Page 3

HUSBAND GRANTED DECREE NISI

DECISION GIVEN IN DIVORCE CASE

In his reserved judgment, Mr Justice Fleming granted a decree nisi to Lawrence Trevor Schumacher, whose petition for divorce from Gweneth Alma Schumacher, on the grounds of the respondent’s failure to comply with a decree for restitution of conjugal rights, was heard in the Supreme Court on Friday. The petitioner was represented by Mr G. G. Lock wood.

On October 2, 1946, the petitioner obtained a decree for restitution of conjugal rights within 14 days, said his Honour’s judgment. The respondent did not return to the petitioner within the time fixed and he filed his petition for divorce on November 15, 1946 On December 8, 1946, he arrived home and found the respondent in the house. She told him she had come home as ahe had had a quarrel with her business partners and had nowhere else to go. Her husband allowed her to remain and gave her a housekeeping allowance of £4 a week. They occupied separate rooms for the first week, and after that the respondent had a girl friend to stay with her. “The respondent took part-time employment in a shop, and probably as a result of this, she neglected the housework. This led to quarrels and on March 23, 1947. the respondent informed the petitioner that she was leaving again, that she .had taken board and could look after herself. She 16ft his home that day and has not returned,” continued the judgment. “It is clear that the respondent never had any intention of complying with the decree for restitution, and that she did not, in fact, do so. She used her husband’s house to suit her own convenience, because she had nowhere else to go. And she did not render to him conjugal rights within any meaning that can be put upon that term. She did not even look after his ’ house properly. T am, therefore, of opinion that the petitioner is entitled to succeed.”