DUKE WINS DIVORCE

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30127, 10 May 1963, Page 3

DUKE WINS DIVORCE

Costly Legal Action

(W.Z. Press Asm.—Copyright) EDINBURGH, May 8

The Duke of Argyll, aged 59. head of the Campbell Clan, today won his divorce in Edinburgh. Lord Wheatley granted a decree on the grounds of the Duchess's? adultery with a former Lon-i don hotel press officer. Lord Wheatley, in his I 50.000-word reserved judg-| meat, spoke of the 49-year-i old Duchess as a "completely i promiscuous woman." Lord Wheatley found the: Duchess had committed adultery with Harvey Christian Rupert Peter Combe, aged 37, of Ross-Shire, Scotland. The judge found that adultery by the Duchess with a 51-year-old German diplomat. Sigismund von Braun, and an unnamed man shown naked in two photographs had been condoned. Her adultery with an American businessman. John Cohane. aged 55, had not been condoned. Under Scottish law, the decree becomes absolute at once. It is subject only to the fact that the Duchess is entitled to lodge an appeal within 21 days. Combe, von Braun, and Cohane were the three men named by the Duke in his petition.

Combe had submitted a minute denying the allegations concerning him. The Duke of Argyll began the action four years ago. It is estimated to have cost £50.000.

The marriage was the Duchess’s second. She had previously been married to the American golfer. Charles Sweeney.

Lord Wheatley said in his judgment: “There is enough in her own admissions to establish that by 1960 she was ’a completely promiscuous woman whose sexual appetite could only be satisfied by a number of men and whose attitude to the sanctity of marriage was what moderns would call enlightened. but in plain language could only be described as wholly immoral.” Lord Wheatley reserved judgment on the question of costs.

Retiring.— The secretary of the Electrical Supply Authorities’ Association (Mr N G. Dunning) is retiring from that position to enter the commercial field.—<P.A.)