PERSECUTING WIFE

Evening Star, Issue 21724, 19 May 1934, Page 8

PERSECUTING WIFE

DOCTOR GRANTED SEPARATION ’UNBEARABLE scenes [Per United Press Association.] AUCKLAND, May 18. An unusual case, an application for a judicial separation by a husband on the ground of his wife’s alleged cruelty, came before Mr Justice Herdman in the Supreme Court to-day. The petitioner was Dr Neil M'Dougall, who was married to the respondent, Minnie Evelyn M'Dougall, in 1923. The petitioner alleged that during the ten years from 1923 to 1933 the respondent had habitually used abusive, ofand threatening language to the petitioner and on several occasions had struck him with her fist. Counsel said that a similar petition had been brought in June. 1929, but it had been abandoned on the wife giving a solemn undertaking to his Honour not to molest the petitioner and not to endeavour to communicate with him except through a solicitor. The petitioner was a very_ well-known and highly respected medical practitioner, who had long held a prominent position in the world. After the separation tho petitioner had made his wife an allowance of £6 a week. Dr M'Dougall said his wife was suspicious of every woman patient. She was of an ungovernable temper and demanded, a divorce because his little son did not get into the bed tho moment she told him to. “Many a time I have -walked the streets at night to get a little peace,” said witness. Witness said that he appointed a highly qualified nurse with his wife’s approval, but his wife very soon took exception to her and a terrible scene, demanding her dismissal. She quarrelled with the nurse and chased her out of the house. He described several occasions on which his wife had struck him. In July, 1925, she took a suitcase and smashed the leadliglit of the consulting room. She struck him on the head with a shoe horn and kicked him and the next morning dug her nails into ins wrist and drew blood. Ho was certainly in fear of bodily injury. Witness said his wife would have fits of using the telephone to abuse him six or seven times during an afternoon. She had injured his aged mother and had been exceedingly cruel to her. Witness detailed numerous incidents of interference and persecution by his wife. She had followed him into church to make accusations against him. Last October his wife visited a house at Remnera where he was attending to patients. When refused admission, she climbed a ladder and .smashed I ho window with her umbrella. She

smashed other windows before, leaving, and his son had to stay in the house for some nights to afford him protection. Neil Morwen M‘Dougall ? son of the petitioner, gave corroborative evidence. Describing the scene at the Remuera house, he said that plants had been torn up and thrown on the path ana the veranda. ■ ~ His Honour said it looked as it there had been continuous persecution. The wife had persisted in making her husband’s life unbearable entirely without justification. He could draw the inference that the petitioner s_ health had been affected and undermined by the woman’s acts of misconduct. He would therefore make a decree tor a judicial separation.