WOMAN'S CLAIM

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 130, 3 June 1932, Page 8

WOMAN'S CLAIM

GRAVE ALLEGATIONS

INSURANCE RECEIPTS

sSTOEY ABOUT HUSBAND

Evidence dealing mainly with the Alleged forgery of insurance company receipts was heard in the Supreme Conrt yesterday afternoon, when Mrs. Ivy Elizabeth Johnson, who in the course of claims against two insurance companies is making allegations of attempted murder and forgery against her husband, continued her story from the witness-box. Mrs. Johnson is claiming £500 from the Australasian Temperance and General Mutual Life Assurance Society, Ltd., and £260 from the Commercial Union Assurance Co., Ltd., in) respect of two accident policies taken out with these companies. His Honour Mr. Justice Becd is hearing the cases. ■ , Continuing her'evidence after "The Post" went to press, Mrs. Johnson said that she, and her husband discussed the accident while she was in the Levin Hospital, and later he wrote to her enclosing a draft report of what he suggested she should say to the police. This statement said that the train did not whistle, and the husband applied thci brakes of the car just as it reached the crossing. It suggested further that the plaintiff should tell the police that she got. out on her side of the car, that ho got out on his, and that the train hit the car, sending it back on to,the.plaintiff and injuring her leg. DENIAL OP SIGNING. • After, leaving the Levin Hospital, where her leg was amputated below the knee, continued the plaintiff, she went into Bowen street hospital, where another operation was performed, and for some days after this she was seriously iIL The operation took place on 2nd July. Plaintiff denied that a man named Goodwin had visited her in company, with her husband, or that she had signed any insurance company receipt. Her. name on the document produced was a forgery, as was also a second document produced. She denied that she had signed this second document in , the presence of a man named Best or anyone else! . She left the hospital on 21st Augi'.jc, and on the second night she was at home she wenc to get a drink of water. She slipped on her crutches and her husband, who was in the dining-room, said: "Why don't you stand on your legs?" Witness replied: "Because you took it off;" Her husband, she said, got a most peculiar look oh his face, and witness had to go into the bedroom, where her mother and her daughter were. She locked the door, but her husband hammered and threatened to cut all their throats. On , 26th August the plaintiff left homo, and she-had not returned since. On . 29th September she was legally separated from her husband, "OTHER THINGS TO THINK ABOUT." . Proceeding,, Mrs. Johnson said that she first knew the insurance money had,been drawn just before she left the hospital in August. She had taxed her husband with the matter some time later; but he denied it. Prior tq the legal separation there were several'conferences at the office of Mr. Johnson's -solicitor. At the first conference nothing was said about the insurance money. ' His Honour: "That's.what I can't understand. Here you know your husband has appropriated- or spent this money, j£ 700 or .£BOO, and you say nothing about it while you deal with comparatively small matters like beds and things. Why didn't you say some- . thing about it?" ■' ' ■■ ' Witness: "I had other things to think about." ' At the second conference, said Mrs. Johnson, she mentioned to her husband at the end that he had obtained tho money by forced receipts. He denied this, saying that .witness had signed the receipts at the same time as she had signed some cheques while in the' Levin hospital. ■ Counsel: '.'Did you sigu any receipts then, or at any other time." Witness: "No." _ Her husband, continued Mrs. Johnson, stated that he had spent the money on their properties. In answer to counsel for the Australasian Temperance and General Mutual Life Assurance Society,. Mrs. Johnson said that seven years ago she had been involved in a serious accident in which she received a fractured skull and was unconscious for two days. She first knew of the • receipts being given for the money in November, 1930.. In August, 1930, she knew from her then solicitor that' the, insurance companies had paid out this money to her husband. ■ Counsel: "Well, what did you think had happened?. How did you think this money was obtained!" ■■■■■■ Witness: "It didn't occur to me. I wag too. ill to worry about it, and I was forced to leave my home in terror." '. Questioned f urtherj the plaintiff said the only insurance document she had signed was a claim form. "I SIGNED NOTHING." • "What documents did you sign, for your husband while you were in Bowen street?"—"l signed nothing at all while I was in Bowen street. I didn't have a pen in my hand all the time I was there." ■ ■ ' "Matron Davis will say that you signed a document when you Were" in Bowen street in the presence of another man and Mr. Johnson?"—" That is quite untrue." "'. "Mr. Goodwin will also say that he was present one day in Bowen street .and he saw and witnessed you sign a document?"—" That's also quite untrue." i . "According to your evidence to-day, your husband attempted to murder you? "—" Certainly." "That's the worst crime; as lesser ones, he is a forger, you say, a wholesale liar, and, according to you,- a .thief?"—" Yes, and according to him I'm a lunatic." "Here was a man who bad-attempted to murder you, and yet when you leave the hospital you go home with him?" —f'lt was my place and I had my mother' there- to protect me." „ ."And-you stayed there for two days with him?"—" Only under the same roof. . . .-'The place was big enough." "Yes, but a potential murderer is not a very safe person to be even under the same roof as." • To counsel for the Commercial Union Company, Mrs. Johnson said that for about weight years she had had cars registered in her name and her husband had always transacted her insurance business. At the conclusion of this portion of the cross-examination the Court adjourned until Monday, when counsel for Mr. Johnson will cross-examine.