BIGAMY ALLEGED

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 112, 7 November 1935, Page 11

BIGAMY ALLEGED

MAN COMMITTED FOR TRIAL

Charges of committing bigamy and making a false statement to the marriage registrar were preferred against i 1 ,9 age Leckv. a motor engineer, aged 40, who appeared in the Magistrate s Court yesterday before Mr. J G L. Hewitt, S.M. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial. The charges against Lecky were that having married Winifred Blanche Robson on October 2, 1916, at St. Mark's Church, Wellington, he went through a form of marriage with Nyleptha Pearl Just at the Presbyterian Manse, Pirie Street, Wellington, in November 1934 thereby committing bigamy; and that lon or about November 24 1934 .*i Wellington, he made a false statement that he was a bachelor for insertion in the marriage register. ; Mr. W. E. Leicester appeared for the accused, and Detective-Sergeant L.B. Revell conducted the prosecution Mrs. Winifred Blanche Lecky oi Ngaio, said that the accused was her husband. They had been married at St. Mark's Church, Wellington, on October 2, 1916. The accused was the John Lecky referred to in a copy of hei marriage certificate, produced in Court, and she was the woman mentioned on it. Neither she nor her husband had entered into any divorce proceedings, but she had taken out a maintenance order against him. Prior to the Court proceedings she had last seen her husband in June, 1933, when she talked to him in Willis Street. She had always been friendly towards her husband. They had not lived together since June, 1927, when they were in Auckland.

The Deputy Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages at Wellington produced a notice of marriage between Lecky and Miss Just, in which Lecky described himself as a bachelor.

Margery Irene Collins stated that both Lecky and Miss Just had boarded with her before their'marriage. She was present at the marriage ceremony, and had signed the register. To her knowledge accused was a single man, and he had never said anything about having a wife or being divorced. Detective W. Kane read a statement from the accused in which he- said he had married Miss Robson in 1916 and lived with her until 1926 as far as he remembered. In 1927 a maintenance order was made against him for default of'payment. He was arrested at T3 Kuiti and taken to Auckland, but tho case was dismissed. Later, while work[ing in Petone, he was told by his brother that he was divorced and that his wife was living at Island Bay. Hs took this fact for granted and in November of last year married Miss Just. When interviewed by the police, he told his wife, who .said she had known for a week that thcrt- was no divorce, and had interviewed a solicitor to have the marriage annulled. The accused also stated that he had never ] been served with any papers concera-i ing divorce. He had no ulterior motive in describing himself as a bachelor in the marriage notice, but Miss Just was opposed to divorce, and he did not wish her to know that he had been previously married or divorced.

C. W. Price and Co., 91 Dixon Street, will sell furniture in the mart tomorrow, commencing at 1.30 p.m.