Simmonds' Sordid Sin

NZ Truth, Issue 1018, 30 May 1925, Page 9

Simmonds' Sordid Sin

. Crime and Divorce,

In the opinion of some members \of the legal • profession there .was not on the records of the country a divorce on the grounds of sodomy till last week, when Mr. Justice Reed granted a petition at Auckland. Mr. R, E. N. Matthews acted for the wife. '

: The respondent was 'a man notorious for revolting sexuality, and is at present serving a life sentence for unnatural offences on boys... Victor Henry Simmonds is the man m- question; and his little, nerve-ruined wife told a tale of unmentionable bestiality on the part of her, husband. Simmonds was sentenced to , imprisonment for life some years ago, and when he had served some thirteen years of the term he was released on license. It was then that he married the petitioner, and there was . one child of the union. Shortly afterwards he was again arrested, after causing a sensation at Mt. Albert, where he knifed one of his pursuers who had seen him tampering with boys. The result was that he broke his parole and was afterwards sent back to prison under a sentence of ten years for the second offence,: with the first still over tiis head. Dr. Share said he had been called m to see the petitioner, who was said to have been addicted to fits. He found no trace of epilepsy and decided £hat the fits were hysterical. ". He described the condition he found the woman m and said that she must have suffered great pain. .

Mr. Wyatt watched the proceedings on behalf of the respondent, instructed by the Seamen's Union. The Judge gran ted', r a decree nisi. ( ,