DOMINION NEWS

Grey River Argus, 21 March 1945, Page 3

DOMINION NEWS

DIVORCE FROM PRISONER , SOUGHT. WELLINGTON, March 19. Though at present serving concurrent sentences of three years’ imprisonment with hard labour for compelling a person to sign a document by threat of violence, and of one year’s imprisonment for assault, Walter Roy Webster, a salesman, appeared as respondent in the Supreme Court before Mr Justice Finlay to defend a divorce petition brought by Ivy Eugene Webster,, petitioner, who said she was married to respondent in January, 1946, and had three children. She alleged that her husband had committed adultery with Dorothy, May Reilly in April, 1944, at Cambridge Terrace, Wellington, and at a hotel in Foxton.

Petitioner gave evidence that she first heard of Mrs’Reilly in October, 1943, from Webster himself, who said lie was doing a job for Mr Stacey, a solicitor. Petitioner’ first met her on February 22, 1944, when she came to see Webster. He took her up to a sitting-room and they were there behind a locked door for three hours. When petitioner asked him what it was all about, he said it was “business”. After that Webster kept talking about his “luscious little redhead.” He would come home in the early hours of the morning saying he had been with her. At one time Webster had £5OO in his possession, and said his girl friend would pay petitioner £2OOO for a divorce. Petitioner said she would gladly accept it. Webster then said she would have to fight for it, but she replied that he and the money were not worth fighting for. Respondent, who did not give evidence himself, addressed His Honour, denying the allegations made, and saying there was not even circumstantial evidence that adultery had been committed. ' His Honour said he had to ask whether the respondent had committed adultery with the co-res-pondent when she was continually surrounded by a “bodyguard”, They 7 were on a criminal venture, but the question was whether adultery was an incident of that. The pair were in an association from which adultery 7 could reasonably and properly be inferred. The respondent's failure to give evidence himself or call Mrs Reilly left the evidence of the petitioner and her witness uncontradicted. Petitioner was granted a decree nisi to be made absolute after three months.