A DIVORCE CASE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 16 August 1924, Page 5

A DIVORCE CASE.

UNHAPPY marriage, both parties unfaithful. (by telegraph—PßESS ASSOCIATION.) „ w , AUCKLAND, Aug. 15. When I married again I had the full impression that McCoy was dead, %TLi e r°r eA iu a ' vl,a]i »g boat on Norfolk Island, but afterwards be came belnnd me m the street and clapped +i L tUe baek > aiul 1 said: ‘Why, I thought you were dead and buried ’ ” ilmt was the statement sobbed out bv a woman in the Supreme Court to-day during the hearing of a petition for divorce. The circumstances were of an unusual character. Petitioner and respondent each admitted adulterv. Jacob McCoy, labourer, of Auckland, sought a divorce from E.velyn May McCoy, whom he married in 1902. Mr Singer (representing the respondent) stated that, the parties separated some time after the marriage, petitioner going to Norfolk Island in 1905. Believing McCoy to be dead, the respondent went through a form of marriage with another man. She had received a cutting from a newspaper that McCoy had been drowned. Evidently it was another man of the same name, for McCoy turned up again. The years went by and petitioner lived in adultery with another woman. Eventually Mrs McCoy was prosecuted for bigamy. McCoy had a child by the woman with whom he lived. In the circumstances it was submitted that both parties should be granted a decree. Petitioner admitted living with another woman in 1914-15. Respondent, on entering the box, burst into tears, and in an incoherent stream of words she told a story of an unhappy married life. "He took me to an empty house with not a tiling in it. Then lie left me, and 1 had to pick up scraps of bread to eat. My father and mother had to keep me,” she sobbed. Mr Justice Herd man granted a decree nisi to each party, no order being made as to costs.