GRETNA MARRIAGES

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 May 1931, Page 9

GRETNA MARRIAGES

A JUDGE’S COMMENTS. LONDON, April 1. A petition to have a Gretna Green marriage declared void came before Lord Pitman in the Edinburgh Court of Session last week. Lord Pitman, in adjourning the case, said it strengthened his view that steps should be taken to make it illegal for selfappointed “priests” to perform ceremonies. The petitioner is Kathleen Williams Rochfort, of Helensburgh, and the respondent, Alfred Theodore Koch, alias Neilson, a commercial traveller, sometime of Glasgow, whose present address is unknown to the petitioner. Petitioner’s story was that she and the respondent were in love and, in spite of the opposition of her parents, became engaged. They entered into a scheme to bring pressure to bear on her parents and move them to consent. On April 3, 1929, they motored to Gretna, and went through a ceremony of marriage, neither of them intending that it should be a real marriage. The ceremony was performed by a shoemaker, the parties joining hands across an anvil,, and being asked to take one another for man and wife. Then followed the benediction, and a certificate was handed to them professing to certify that they had been married in the manner of the law of Scotland. It was signed by the parties, by two witnesses, and by the shoemaker, who was'designed “priest.” The parties were advised that the marriage had to be registered within three months. The respondent placed a ring on petitioner’s third finger of the left hand. She said she regarded the ring as a symbol of her intention

to carry out, at a future date, her promise to marry the respondent. She did not regard it as a symbol of present marriage. After the ceremony the two returned to their respective homes and never lived together.

Petitioner’s case was tha£ neither she nor the respondent intended to give, nor did give, consent to the marriage. They both regarded the ceremony as a means of making their engagement, or promise of marriage, more definite with a view of persuading the petitioner’s parents to agree. In the absence of the respondent his Lordship said that he was unable to hold that the petitioner had proved that she and he did not intend to become husband and wife. Mental reservation on the part of two contracting parties could" never be allowed to modify the contract. His lordship added that the case strengthened him in the view that steps should be taken to have it made illegal for these self-appointed “priests” to perform the ceremony, or, at all events, to call them to account for taking payment on their issuing what professed to be a certificate of marriage which was nothing of the kind.

In a previous case the parties were charged a guinea for a worthless piece of paper, and in the present case 30/was paid to the witnesses, but how it was divided did not appear, the “priest” having stated that he macle no charge, but left it to the parties to pay what they liked.