MAN'S SIX WIVES

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4955, 13 February 1937, Page 6

MAN'S SIX WIVES

' ■ -o CAREER AS BIGAMIST. STORY OF THE SPANISH WAR. A remarkable story of a man’s many marriages, legal and bigamous, was told at the Old Bailey recently, when John Ainsworth Christien, aged 40, was sentenced to 20 months’ hard labour after pleading guilty to one charge of bigamy and one of false pretences, says the “Morning Post.” Mr. G. B. McClure (prosecuting) said that Christien was first married in 1918. Two years later he bigamously “married” and his wife divorced him. He again married and after another bigamous “marriage” was again divorced. In 1932 he was again legally married and this third legal wife travelled about with him to various places. Christien went to Spain last August, said counsel, and married a young woman in a village near Barcelona and brought her to this country. He went to a boarding-house or hotel at Leatherhead, told the landlady that he was a Spanish refugee, that his business in Spain had gone, and that he was in receipt of £25 a month. He induced her to board him. He remained until November, but paid nothing. Evidence was given that among Christien’s convictions were two for bigamy.

Mr. W. B. Manley (defending) : After convictions for previous bigamies, and a plea to yet another one, this man will have plenty to answer for . . . The Recorder (Sir Holman Gregory) : Where? In this world or the next? Mr. Manley: Here. Plea from Barcelona. “The revolution started in Barcelona,” said Mr. Manley, “and it was from there that he received a letter from his bigamous wife. She was a well-connected Spanish girl whose people were in business with which he had been connected for seven years and in which he had invested some of his money. The business was confiscated. The family were suspect because they were not Communists or anarchists, and the city 1 was in the hands of Communist and anarchist committees. Murders were being committed daily. Life and property were unsafe. She wrote him an imploring letter begging him to come and save her and her money. “While his wife was ignoring him and he was serving penal servitude, Rosita, the Spanish girl, was writing him regularly, imploring him to turn over a new leaf and make a decent citizen of himself. She knew perfectly well that he was married.’’ Christien had great difficulty in getting into Spain. The only way he could get her out was to marry

her, and to give her the status of a British subject. She had obtained a Spanish passport on the previous day, but she waUrpYevented by the revolutionary pickets from boarding the train and was sent back. “The danger was terrible,” said counsel, “because of her family associations. They went to a Village 12 miles from Barcelona, married, and were evacuated from Spain as British refugees 'and brought away on a 1 British warship.” Mr. Manley added that the bigamous marriage had done no harm to anyone. Christien’s wife had since served him with divorce papers, and he was anxious to marry Senorita Rivero legally.