SUIT DISMISSED

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 121, 24 May 1928, Page 17

SUIT DISMISSED

PRETENCE OF MISCONDUCT . "HOTEL" D-VOKCE CASES - (From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, 24th March. Lord Merrivale (President of the Divorce Court) this week refused to grant a decree nisi "on the evidence of an hotel bill." Mrs. Louise . Elizabeth Frances Aylward, of tlio Ladies' Army and Navy Club, St. James's Palace, had sought a decreo nisi dissolving.her marriage with her husband, Cyril Bland Aylward, bocause of his alleged misconduct with a woman, not named, at a West End hotel. At the conclusion of the evidence Mr. Bayford, E.G., submitted .that Mrs. Aylward was entitled to a decreo nisi. It had been proved by evidence, he said, that the husband and a woman not his wifo had stayed together for the night at an hotel. Lord Merrivale: "That is part of tho ceremonial. They may havo sat up all night." Mr. Bayford: "The inference is that misconduct was committed." Lord Merrivale: "I have said before that eases of this-class are a-reproach to tho administration of justice in this division. Tho husband and wifo here wero in a good position, and after four or five years of married life had some disagreements. Later tho husband went to his wifo ,and made proposals to her that*sho B-ouldpisSlislii^imifii* procuring the dissbiution*:io_'i"t_ei-Vinarriage. He told her he Was in love with another woman, gave the woman's name, and again suggested that his wife should help him in procuring the 'dissolution of the marriage. Then he sent the wife what might be called a formal letter, saying that ho enclosed an hotel bill, 'which speaks for itself, seeing how things stand between us.' .. "The husband," Lord Merrivale continued, "is apparently a self-respecting man, and there is no indication that he was likely to commit misconduct; with any chance woman. No doubt ho'stayed at the hotel with the object of a decreo nisi being .obtained. • To my mind it is timo that the practice of resorting to hotels in order to make out a prima facie case should be stopped." He dismissed the case. A RESPONDENT'S ADMISSION. The legal correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph" says it is notorious that a very large proportion of divorce suits are stage-managed in the preliminary steps, and are designed more for the relief of the guilty than of the injured and innocent. Not very long ago Mr. Justice Swift, when trying matrimonial suits at Assizesj remarked that half the divorce cases nowadays are brought by the guilty party—that is to say, he or she wrote to the injured and deserted spouse,, stating that upon inquiry' ample evidence would be found at some hotel •of a clandestine stay there with some person unknown, and accompanying this would be a hotel bill for two, persons. Manifestly 'such cases are, as tho Judge described them, a 'fperfect farce," unless amply substantiated. The legal correspondent of the "Daily goes by inference, and up to recent years the inference was far too often drawn ; and acted.., upon that, because two people of opposito sexes occupied one bedroom for a few hours, there must necessarily have been misconuue't. This inference was sometimes drawn in the rather less suspicious circumstances that thero were two bedrooms with a communicating door.';. He cites an example which occurred a few years ago in a remarkable undefended suit, in which a well-known public man, anxious to be divorced,' was tho respondent. Tho wife obtained her decree nisi, and immediately after it was made absolute the respondent wrote to the newspapers in order to point out the absurdity of the divorce laws, declaring that, although the two rooms were occupied by himself and corespondent, the communicating door was locked and never, opened all night, and no misconduct had actually, taken place. The matter is one in which the promoters and managers of well-conducted hotels are entitled to be considered. They quite naturally resent their establishments being used for the manufacture of bogus divorce cases, and themselves, Or their servants, being dragged into tho unsavoury atmosphere of the Divorce Courts. "