WAS FIRST WIFE ALIVE?

Northern Advocate, 26 July 1935, Page 10

WAS FIRST WIFE ALIVE?

UNUSUAL BIGAMY CASE.

VERDICT OF NOT GUILTY.

rper Ptpss AssociaTAnn.—ConyrlQ Tit.i PALMERSTON N., This Day.

Unusual features were connected with, a charge of bigamy preferred against William Albert John Kitteridge in the Supreme Court yesterday. It was alleged he went through a form of marriage in November, 1928, when he had already been married in May, 1916, at Poplar, London.

In a statement to the police, accused said his wife left the Dominion with two children in 1923 for England. In 1927 he received a letter from a ship's fireman who had previously lived with Mrs Kitteridge in Wellington for three weeks, stating that she was happily married. The letter did not say to whom, but accused presumed it was to the man. In 1928 accused married a woman who also left him, but before leaving him she admitted he was her second husband. He last saw her in 1929.

Accused’s counsel submitted that the Crown must prove that accused’s first wife was still alive in 1928. In any case, Kitteridge was entitled to suppose his first wife had divorced him. His Honour agreed that the Crown must prove that the first wife was alive. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty.