BIGAMY CHARGE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19240, 2 August 1924, Page 7

BIGAMY CHARGE.

MISFORTUNES OF NEW ZEALAND EX-SOLDIER. (FaoM OtJB Own Coeeespondent.) LONDON, June 19. At the Essex Assizes this week William Baird Stewart (40), a gardener, pleaded guilty to bigamy at Romford, on October 9, 1917. One phase of Stewart’s troubles, it appears, was that his wife, who joined him in New Zealand, disliked the country and refused to stay there. The prosecutor said that Stewart was married in November, 190 b, at Glasgow; there were three children, two of whom were now living. In 1914, prisoner and his wife were living in Lancashire, out she left him and went to live with her parents, and did not see him again until this charge was made. A letter written in 1917 was in a curious form, as prisoner prayed her to arrange for a divorce ami enclosed a lot of envelopes, apparently in a female handwriting, bearing Australian and New Zealand stamps. It was in 191/ that prisoner went through' the form ot marriage with a Miss Ureen. He had two children by her. Counsel for the defence said that ho prisoner’s married life was not particularly successful, and in 1913 asked his wife to join him, but, getting no satisfactory answer, ho returned to England, and eventually persuaded her to go out with him to New Zealand. Almost immediately on getting out there, she did not like the country, and would not nave anvthino- to do with purchasing furniture for and prisoner provided her with the passage money home, and £IOO besides and she went back to Scotland. Ho followed her back and got a position in Lancashire, where ho and hm wife lived for a time, but he could not get on well with her relations. In 1914 she Mt him. and he went back to New- Zealand He joined the New Zealand Forces during the war, and was twice wounded. Learned counsel pointed out that prisoner bad been in custody between four and hve months. The judge said it was the duty of the magistrates to allow a poison out on bail unless there was some very good reason. As the prisoner had been in custody four months, ho wduld be bound over in £5 to come up for judgment u called upon.