TANGLED DIVORCE CASE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20892, 5 December 1929, Page 9

TANGLED DIVORCE CASE

ADULTERY ON BOTH SIDES. HEARING LASTS SEVEN WEEKS. (United Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) SYDNEY, December 4, A tangled divorce case, which lasted seven weeks, the costs totalling £BOOO to £IO,OOO, ended with the parties as they were at the beginning. T. St. Aubins Bakewell sought a divorce from Mary Gwendoline Bakewell, formerly Bruell, nee Cantwell, on the ground of adultery with her former husband, Bruell, and another. Mrs Bakewell denied the charge ,but alleged that her husband had committed adultery with three other women, and .claimed a judicial separation on those grounds. The judgment traversed the strange history of their marital relationships. In 1021 Mrs Bakewell, then Mrs Bruell, sought a divorce from Bruell on the ground of adultery. The suit was undefended, and a decree was granted, but the Crown intervened, and the decree was rescinded because it was shown that false evidence had been given, and that, at the time the petition was filed Mrs Bruell was living in adultery' with Bakewell, the present husband. Three years later Bruell was granted a divorce on the ground of his wife’s adultery with Bakewell, who subsequently married her.

Mr Justice Owen’s judgment, took 90 minutes to deliver. The case is the longest and most expensive in the New South Wales State legal records. The judge found that all the allegations of adultery on both sides were proved, and dismissed the suits and ordered Bakewell to pay his wife’s costs.