GAOL FOR BIGAMIST

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 12, 14 July 1938, Page 11

GAOL FOR BIGAMIST

FAMILY DESERTED

FOR TEN YEARS

. Married in Liverpool in 1913 to a Frenchwoman from Marseilles, and "married" again in August of 1928, Christopher Leo Michael Spellacy, ; ship*svfireman and grocer; aged 5G,-:was today sentenced in-the Supreme Court tcv,nine months' hard labour for bigamy* by the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers).

Mr. W. B. Brown, who appeared for | the prisoner, said that after he was married there seemed a tendency for his wife to go back to her people. They lived together for only fourteen days in their own home, and when Spellacy returned from a voyage his wife was living with her people. Early in 1915 he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and served for four years, practically the whole time on active service. Only for a short time in 1917 and 1918 was he back on leave to his wife, who all the time was living with her parents. In 1921 an effort was made to Have a home of his own, and he got his wife to agree. They lived together again "for a, fortnight, but when he came back from a voyage to Antwerp his wife was again living with her parents. Her people were foreigners, and the atmosphere was not; conducive to his happiness. He was often told to leave. In 1924 he became engaged on the Australia-New Zealand run/ and did not communicate with his wife again. He met a Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins, and some time after the death 6t Mr. Jenkins he went through a form of marriage with Mrs. Jenkins in 1928. For, the past ten years they had been living together happily, and there had been one child. The second Mrs. Spel--lacy, no matter what happened, felt she could not go on with the association unless the first marriage was dissolved.

"You had a wife and six young children in' England, and the youngest was only a year old," said his Honour. "You left them to their own devices. It may be that you thought they would be helped by your family. You did nothing, you were in work, and your wife and children were thrown entirely or partially on the charity of the poor law system in England. First of all you did them a serious wrong, then, eventually, being already married, you went through a form of marriage with a respectable woman, a widow whom you deceived by representing yourself to be a bachelor. She believed that re;presentation, and married you in reliance upon it. There is a child of that bigamous marriage. Not only did you do a serious wrong to your wife and children in England, you do a more serious wrong to this widow you deceivecj and the child you brought into the world. You certainly cannot have the benefit of probation extended to you."