DIVORCE SUIT OPPOSED

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10685, 3 September 1920, Page 5

DIVORCE SUIT OPPOSED

MISCONDUCT NOT DENIED RESPONDENT CONTENDS ACT WAS CONDONED. A petition for dissolution of mar riago in which the petitioner was the well-known "All-Black" Rugby footballer, Ernest Arthur Bellis, of Taihape (Mr O. R. Beere), was opposed by respondent, Vivienne Doris Bellis (Mi J. Scott), before His Honour Sir Baasett Edwards, at the Supreme Court yesterday, on the ground that the gravamen of the suit—her misconduct with William ' Mciiellar Bourke, of Wellington, driver—had been condoned by Bellis. PETITIONER'S 'EVIDENCE.

The petitioner, on oath, said that he was married to the respondent on January 13th. 1916, at Wellington', and that she gave birth to a child to him five months later, or three months after ho had left New Zealand for the front. The first he heard of any wrongdoing on her part was in. 1918, when ho received intormation that his father had stopped her allowance. Later he heard that she had 'given birth to an illegitimate child. Deponent next saw his wife upon his return from active service, in October, 1919, but he did not take her to live with him, with tho result that he did not again see her until June, 1920, when she commenced maintenance proceedings against him. He then journeyed to. Wellington from Taihape, and agreed to keep her, but refused a request to live with her. Whilst he was with the "All Black" team at Auckland, shortly before the.commencement of the trip to Australia,. he received a note from the respondent in which she asked to see him, and threatened to have him arrested, and so stopped from going to Australia. Hie Honour: Have you that note?— No; I destroyed it. Continuing, tho witness said that he met his wife and went with her to a park, where she asked him if he wbuld take her back, and to which he replied that he would think it over.

His Honour: How did she proprose to have; you arrested said something about a forgery,' but would give me no further information on that point. Mr Beere: Well, what happened after you told her that you would consider her request?,—•We cohabited, after which she again asked me if 1 would live with her. I told her that I would let her know by letter from Palmerston North. I did not write, and in due course journeyed to Australia. When I.returned she met me, and asked me to eee her;in the afternoon of the same day, and I told her that likely I would. I did not meet her, and hare not seen her since until to-day. Cross-examined by Mr Scott, Bellie admitted that, although he returned in 1919, he did not commence proceedings for divorce until after the respondent had claimed maintenanco, in June, 1920. In May last ho told Mrs Bellis and her mother that .he would let them know if he would live with the respondent; a gain,, b"ut not say that for the sake" of their boy, to whomhe was attached, he would let bygones be bygones. He did not tell tho respondent that he would not again live with her. The witness said that ho had just as much to do with the proceedings for the divorce as his father. RESPONDENT GIVES EVIDENCE. ,

The respondent deposed that in June last the petitioner told her that family pressure had been 'brought to bear on him to proceed with the action for divorce, but-that he had decided to discontinue the proceedings and take hci back as his wife. Subsequently they had cohabited.

His Honour said the position was extraordinary so far as condonation was concerned.

_Mr Scott asked that the petition be dismissed.

Counsel'for petitioner argued that condonation was a subject of fact, not of law. The ac-t which, it was alleged, constituted condonation could not in the slightest degree be construed in that way. At this stage the action was adjourned, for argument at a later date.