A KNOTTY POINT.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXII, Issue 15558, 7 March 1911, Page 4

A KNOTTY POINT.

CONNIVANCE BARS DIVORCE SUIT. Judgment was given hv Mr Justice Donniston yesterday in the caso in which William Notmann petitioned for the dissolution of his marriage with Edith Rose Notmann on the ground of her misconduct with James Brown, commonly known as Raymond Hope. His Honor stated that the petition, lmd been filed on January 19, 1911. The respondent had filed an answer denying the adultery and an amended answer in which, while denying the adultery, she stated that if she had committed adultery, the petitioner hud connived at it, and by bis own habits and conduct had induced it, and that she was informed and believed that connivance existed between the petitioner and co-respondent. The co-re-spondent had not appeared.

The Court had to consider, liis Honor continued, after a careful review of tho evidence, whether the petitioner had been brought within the words of section 30 of the Divorce and Matrimonial Causes Act as having been accessory to or conniving at the adultery complained of. Ho did not consider it nocessary to discuss what constituted connivance. It most commonly occurred when the adultery took place while the husband and wife resided together. It was the duty of a husband while marital relations existed to protect the honour of his wife, even,against herself, but this duty did not extend to tlie caso of a wife who had voluntarily separated herself from her husband. Even in that case, however, tho husband must not take any active part, directly or indirectly, in procuring or contributing to tho adultery. He held that the petitioner had been accessory to the act of adultery charged on September 2G. The circumstances of tho other two charges in December would not in themselves justify the same conclusion in respect to them; but when the Court was satisfied that a petitioner had been accessory to ono act, suspicion attached to all subsequent acts of adultery which ho claimed to have witnessed, especially when they related to the same adulterer and were close in time to the earlier caso. Tho petitioner’s evidence was tainted. This suggestion was, of course, increased

when the petitioner was shown to hava throughout continued his compromising relations with the alleged adulterer. Even if there was not direct evidence to show or suggest that the petitionol had been directly accessory to the latof acts of adultery, the Court was not concerned to examine minutely into th« question of how far his action in con. r.ection with the first proved act in. fluenced acts between the same partioa a few months later. On the whole, the. conduct of tho petitioner disentitled him to the relief lie asked. The petition was dismissed with costs on the lowest scale as a defended case. Mr Free appeared for the petitioner and Mr Leathern for the respondent. 1