BIGAMIST GAOLED

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 41, 18 February 1937, Page 11

BIGAMIST GAOLED

CRIME 11 YEARS AGO

LAPSE OF TIME LESSENS GRAVITY

"If this case had come before the Court shortly aftei- the offence was committed it would have been treated as a very bad case of bigamy, because of the callous manner in which you left your wife and children," said the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers), in the Supreme Court today before sentencing William Arnold Sinclair, a labourer, aged 41, to six months' hard labour for bigamy committed eleven years ago.

Had the prisoner been brought before the Court soon after, his offence, said his Honour, there would have been a substantial sentence imposed. Although the offence did not loom so large after eleven years, it was nevertheless necessary to consider the case, from the point of view of the manner in which it was disposed of, acting as deterrent to other persons who might be minded to commit similar offences. Probation was out of the question. Mr. P. Keesing, who^ appeared for the prisoner, said Sinclair had led a very ""unhappy life with his real wife. He left her eleven years ago to seek work in Wellington and boarded with the parents of the woman with whom he went through a form of marriage. He committed the offence about five months after leaving his wife. He had been extremely happy with his second "wife" and had three children.