UNUSUAL DIVORCE HITCH

Evening Star, Issue 22670, 9 June 1937, Page 9

UNUSUAL DIVORCE HITCH

INTERVENTION TO STOP DECREE ABSOLUTE [Per Uxited Press Association.] AUCKLAND, June 8. Hearing was continued this afternoon before Air Justice Cailan of the case in which the unusual course or the Solicitor-General intervening when a motion to have a decree nisi moved absolute was taken. The parties were Geoffrey Squire Radley, fruit and produce merchant, Christchurch, and Dorothy Whalloy Radley. The husband was represented bv Air Finlay and Mr Mackay, and Airs'Radley was not represented. Air V. R. Meredith appeared for the Solicitor-General. Giving evidence. Airs Radley stated that there were five children of the marriage. Her husband first left her in 1927, and shortly after she received a letter from his solicitor, who invited her to sign a deed of separation. Later, she persuaded the petitioner to return to her. but several incidents concerning another woman subsequently occurred. In 1929 she received another request for separation. Refusing, she told petitioner’s solicitor that her husband was making a fool of himself, and would get over his infatuation. , , Tracing the history of her married life prior to the signing of the agreement of separation in August, 1932. Mrs Radley said that on quo occasion when she remonstrated with her husband about his visits to a home at Alilford. he kicked her out of bed on to the floor. As a result, her right side was bruised. On another day ho pinned her to th© wall while a boy packed her children’s clothes, an action to which she took exception. During a tour of Britain and the Continent the petitioner at first refused to give her a ticket back to New Zealand, and warned her against returning to tho Dominion. The respondent outlined subsequent requests she received for the signing of a separation deed, and said that in December, 1931, her husband mentioned going to Papatoetoe to live, and when she declined ho removed all the furniture from the house in Epsom. the three children and herself staying on in the empty house. Tho respondent said a settlement was arranged in August, 1932, and in November she took up her residence in Christchurch, and her husband’s first hostility was gradually broken down. She saw him and communicated with him every week, and he took her out in his car frequently in tho succeeding months. On June 9, 1934, ha discussed the possibility of her going back to live with him, and on June 13 she agreed to the proposal, but after July 12 she saw little of him, and, with two of their daughters, he left for England in Alay, 1935. When sho visited tho house in July during her husband’s absence another woman, who had taken charge of tho home, attempted to “ push her out.” She discovered letters written by her husband to tho woman she met, and later her son dragged her out of the drawing room and threw her down the front steps. In October sho was served with a petition for divorce.

The hearing was adjourned until tomorrow.