ALLEGED BIGAMY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 95, 19 October 1910, Page 7

ALLEGED BIGAMY.

YOUNG MAN COMMITTED FOR TRIAL. Appearing on remand, a young man named William Watkins, a bill-poster by occupation, was charged at the Magistrate's Court to-day, before Mr. W. G. Riddell, S.M., that on the 19th September last, at Wellington, being already married, he went through a form of marriage with Eva Gibson, and a second information charges Watkins with wilfully making a false statement for the purpose of being inserted in the marriage register book — namely, that on the 19th September he was a bachelor. Chief Detective Broberg prosecuted, and accused was unrepresented by* counsel. On a previous occasion when Watkins was before the Court, evidence had been .given by William Tingey, a fireman on the steamer Whakarua, that he was present at a marriage of Watkins to his (Tingey'a) sister at the Church of England, Silvertown, a suburb of London, in September, 1907. So far aa Tingey knew, his sister was still alive and well ; he saw her in July, before the Whakarna sailed for New Zealand, and he had received two letters from England since that ; accused and Tingey's sister had never been divorced, and the marriage had never been annulled or set aside. When the case was resumed to-day, Eva Watkins, formerly Gibson, residing &t 27, Hopper-street, with her mother and stepfather, said she made the acquaintance of acetified at the beginning of May, and married him at the Registrar's office on the 19th September. Defendant represented himself a« a bachelor ; witness heard him inform the R«i?i3traT to that effect. Gilbert Graham Hodgkins, Registrar of Marriages at Wellington, said that he married accused and the last witness on the 19th September at the Registry Office, a copy of the marriage certificate being identified. Accused supplied particulars relating to the marriage, a statement of defendant being produced.; it was to the effect that Watkins was a bachelor, and witness's clerk entered this in the marriage notice book. Accused made the usual statement that the particulars were correct, and they were accordingly entered in the registry book. Again the statement was read over to the accused, who swore them to be correct. Detective Hammond interviewed accused at Wellington Gaol on the sth October, and Watkins then made a statement in which he admitted that he was the "William Watkins" who was married to Mary Ann Tingey, then Mrs. Reid, a widow, at Silvertown, near London, in 1907 ; since leaving England he had not heard from his formfcr wife, and a seafaring man in Lyttelton had informed him that Mrs. Reid was dead. Watkins had not, howeveT, taken any steps to ascertain vvhether the report was correct or not. Defendant pleaded not guilty to the charges, had nothing to say, and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial.