QUESTION OF IDENTITY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 93, 22 April 1925, Page 15

QUESTION OF IDENTITY

"THE COINCIDENCE IS TOO

KEMAIIKABLE."

(XI TELEORArH .—PRESS ASSOCIATION.)

AUCKLAND, 21st April.

The case against John William Hope, aged 33, for default of £53 15s in respect of .in order for maintenance of. his wife in England, was continued at * the Police Court to-day. The defence was a denial of identity. The Maintenance Officer said that accused was sentenced to six months' imprisonment last year for a-breach' of-the . order, obtained against one John William Hope in England in 1921.

Mr. Sullivan, for • accused, said that Hope had been allegedly identified by a photograph from England, The Magistrate, Mr. Poynton, said that it was too late to raise that question now. A year ago he was sentenced, and the Court was then satisfied he was the man mentioned in the order.

Accused entered the witness-bos and said he was married at Bolton Registry Office in July, 1923. He sailed for New Zealand the next month. He had not been married before. Two months after his arrival his wife received a letter from her sister, in which a previous marriage was hinted at. A cable-' gram was sent denying that there had been any marriage in 1916. He assumed the name of Lane after discharge from Mount Eden, because of the difficulty in obtaining employment. He had always been aware of a likeness to the other man Hope. The Magistrate : "You ask tho Court to believe that two men of the same name, and similar appearance and age, worked at the same place as electrical wiremen, and also that your fathers followed identical occupation? The coincidence is too remarkable."

Mrs. Edith Alice Hope, wifo of the accused, said that she did not know the man in the English photograph with a strange ■ woman.

11^'°^ PhotoSraphers gave evidence

The Magistrate, said that there was so much pubhc interest in the case that he would give a written judgment