WIFE'S UNLAWFUL ACT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 150, 22 December 1938, Page 29 (Supplement)

WIFE'S UNLAWFUL ACT

STOPPER ON HUSBAND

TELEGRAM IN HIS NAME

(By Telegraph.) (Special to the 'Evening Post.")

DUNEDIN, This Day.

"The circumstances are very exceptional and the outcome of matrimonial troubles." said the iviagistrate, Mr. J. R, Bartholomew, in the Police Court when Myrtle- Ellen Tohnsoi! was charged with causing a telegraph message to be sent on October 17 in the name of Francis D. Johnson without that person's authority.

Chief-Detective Holmes said that the husband of the defendant was a racehorse owner and had nominated certain horses anc accepted the weights allotted. The acceptances were published but the horses' names were not included. He rang the secretary of the Racing Cluo at Gore, who informed him that a telegran.l had been received the previous day reading, "Unavoidable cancel acceptance. F. Johnson." Johnson complained and police inquiries revealed that a telephone message was received from Mosgiel requesting the telegraph operator to send the message. The voice was that of a woman. The defendant admitted sending the telephone message and 4ated that she did so because she had determined that if her husband would not maintain her he was not going to race horses if she could help it. 1% was an act_of annoyance. \

Counsel, addressing the Court, said that the defendant was a highly respectable woman. There had been constant strife during the married life of the couple. A case involving a complaint for maintenance was pending at the. time and the woman was distraught. She did not know that she was committing an offence agains* the law but voluntarily came from Wellington to meet the charge. It was practically a family matter, said counsel, who asked the Magistrate to consider adjourning the case rather than entering "a conviction.

The Magistrate remarked upon the seriousness with which a charge of this nature was regarded under the Act. In this case, however, the circumstances were very exceptional and the outcome of matrimonial troubles. No real harm had been done. In all the circumstances the case would be met by an adjournment for " twelve months.

An application for suppression of the defendant's name was refused.