UNUSUAL CASE

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 114, 11 November 1919, Page 11

UNUSUAL CASE

CONCERNING A MAINTENANCE

ORDER

EDUCATION DEPARTMENT CRITI-

CISED,

A very old-standing maintenance case was considered by Mr. E. Page, S.M.j at the Magistrate's Court yesterday aiternoon, when Joseph Sebastian Wilson was charged at the instance of the Education Department, through the police, with having failed, in March, 1904, to comply with an order made by the Court for the' maintenance of his illegitimate child. A counter-application was made by the defendant for the cancellation of the a-rrears. Counsel for the defendant, Mr. C. A. L. Treadwell, said1 lhat the case was a most extraordinary one, which brought to light the methods of the Education Department. In March, 1904, Wilson was ordered by the Court to pay maintenance at the rate of 7s per week in respect of an illegitimate child. A year later Wilson met the mother of the child, and was told that she was about to be married and that he need not concern himself longer about the support of the child. Two years later the defendant was himself married, and now had a family of six children, the eldest being jusT over eleven years of age. The defendant had for seven years been in the employ of the Railway Department, and had made no attempt to evade the police. When he retired from the railway service he settled at Levin on a small farm, which just brought him in a bare living. For five years he had lived at Levin as a respected resident, when suddenly he was served with, the summonses ordering him to appear to explain his failure to. comply with the order made against him. - Counsel suggested that the Magistrate should give some formal direction to the Education Department requesting it to make fuller inquiries into such cases before action was taken. When the defendant married he considered that ho was exonerated of all liability in respect of the order, and therefore he made no mention of the matter to his wife. Consequently, when the present proceedings were taken the relations between defendant and his wife were considerably strained. ,• , • Sub-Inspector Emerson said that the arrears ariiounted to £160 10s. The child had been committed to a receiving home in 1907, and was, discharged in 1918, and was no longer a\ward of the State. . In 1905 a -warrant was issued against the defendant, but the man could not be found, and the warrant had remained in force until the defendant was apprehended on the present occasion. Crimo reports. were ..issued and inquiries were made from.time to, time,.but no trace of the man -was found till September last, when it was ascertained that he had been in the employ of the Railway Department for several years." Wilson, in giving evidence, said that his earnings from his poultry farm did not exceed £100 per annum, and he was having a difficult time to make ends meet without the additional liability which the enforcement of the order would place upon him. After the mother .of the child had told him that he need not concern himself further/over the support of the child, he had considered that his liability was at an end. The mother of the child was now dead..

Mr. Page expressed the opinion that the defendant could not, be legally dissolved from liability as a result of something the child's mother had said in a casual conversation. The order obtained by the mother, he pointed out, was superseded by the order made when the child was placed in the receiving home. Mr. 'Treadwell again expressed the opinion in no uncertain terms that the Education Department should have made fuller inquiries before taking action; if that had been done, he contended, action would not have been taken. •

Sub-Inspector Emerson stated that Wilson was a hard-working man with a young family ; undoubtedly lie was having a bad time.

The Magistrate dismissed the information laid by the Education Department through, the police, and granted the application made by defendant for a 'remission of the arrears. He did not agree entirely with counsel's remarks regarding the methods followed by the Education Department. As the "second order made against Wilson ceased to exist in January, „10, when the child was discharged from, the receiving home, the-cross-action for the cancellation of the order lapsed. The matter had certainly been standing .in abeyance- for a very long time, land he did not consider that under the' circumstances it would be' n?ht to saddle the defendant with an added liability