UNUSUAL DIVORCE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 121, 24 May 1928, Page 11

UNUSUAL DIVORCE

BIGAMIST'S PETITION (By Telegraph.) (Special to "The Evening Post.") CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. Amongst the divorce petitions heard before Mr. Justice Adams yesterday was a most unusual one from a .bigamist, who wanted to divorce his wife on the ground that she-had deserted him. The petitioner was not present to support his claim, but tho wife was, and she secured a divorce on a cross-petition. Frederick William Seaton, engineer, of Papakura, asked for divorce from Olive Elizabeth Seaton (Mr. E. S. M'Carthy) on the ground of desertion. The wife entered a cross-petition on the ground of desertion and adultery. Mr. M'Carthy said that after deserting his wife Seaton had contracted a bigamous marriage with another woman. The petitioner said that she married Seaton in 1917. They lived at Napier for about two months; she was a widow with one child, and he a widower with two children. In two months he gave her' only £.4 for maintenance. They agreed to.separate until ho could afford to maintain a home, aud her husband went to Palmerston North. He had never gone back to her. In Palmerston North, in 1921, she gave evidence against him in a ease in which ho pleaded guilty to a charge of contracting a marriage with another woman, thereby committing bigamy. He was sentenced to throe years' imprisonment. A decree nisi was granted, to be made j absolute after, three months.