TANGLED RELATIONS

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 32, 1 November 1929, Page 15

TANGLED RELATIONS

BIGAMY CHARGE FAILS Dominion Special. Service. Auckland, October 30. Tangled relations arising from four marriage ceremonies were described in the Supreme Court to-day, when Minnie Claraest Horrocks was charged with bigamy and making a false declaration to the Registrar of Marriages at Auckland. . . The charges arose from a form ot marriage which accused went through with George Earl at Auckland in 1921, whereas she had previously married William Arthur Meredith in England, in 1912. Both Meredith and accused had been married prior to 1912. The death of accused’s first husband was not disputed, but where as Meredith (now a tailor in Christchurch) stated he had learned of his first wife’s death some years before marrying accused, the defence was raised that accused had reason to believe, on Meredith’s own admission, that his first wife was living at the time of the second marriage ceremony. Meredith, in evidence, denied he told accused his former wife was living. Accused was described as a spinster when She married him, and he was then unaware of her previous marriage, lie went to'the war with the Twentieth Reinforcement, and bn returning he inquired for her without success, and did not see her again until the present proceedings started. . , „. , Accused, in the witness-box, alhrmeu the accuracy of the statements which she had made to the police. She said that while away with the expeditionary force Meredith wrote saying he was having a good time in England with his wife, and had no intention of returning to New Zealand. Meredith's mother had ■ told her after the marriage that he had a wife living in England, and Meredith had confirmed this, but said that because of something she had done, this wife had no claim on him. When she married Earl in 1921 she believed that the 1912 ceremony was. not a marriage, because Meredith" then had a wife living. Accused's'maiden name was Horrocks. The jury- returned a verdict of not guilty.