YOUNG MAN’S ROMANCES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20961, 26 February 1930, Page 10

YOUNG MAN’S ROMANCES.

ALLEGED TO HAVE FOUR WIVES. CHARGED WITH COMMITTING BIGAMY. (Per United Press Association.; AUCKLAND, February 25. The tale of a young man’s many romances was. told in the Police Court when a motor salesman. Arthur Ronald Harris, aged 34, an Englishman, was charged with committing bigamy. It was alleged he had four wives. Documentary evidence was produced alleging that the accused, under his correct name, married Georgina Vance, aged 20, on December 19, 1923, at Cheltenham, Gloucester, and ou October 15, .1927 under the name of John Charles Pelham, he married Roberta Jessi6a IVadkiu in . the registrar’s office, Marylebone, London. Under the name of John Harris, in September 2, 1929, the accused married Evelyn Alice Newton, aged 20, at Willesden, in Middlesex. Detective Nalder produced the original information and depositions of Jessie Keecli, GrOorgina Harris, Roberta Jessica Wadkin, Evelyn Alice Newton, and Kenneth Morgan, and also exhibits of photographs of the accused, and certified copies of the marriages of Arthur Ronald’Harris' with Georgina Vance, and of John Charles Pelham to Roberta Jessica Wadkin, and of John Harris to Evelyn Newton- Three letters were also produced. All the documents bore the signature of the Home Department. On January 21 last, at Auckland, with Detective Packman, witness arrested the accused at a garage, where he was employed, in Newton. Detective Nalder asked the accused his full name. Harris said it was Arthur Ronald Harris. The accused admitted he arrived at Wellington by the lonic from England last November. The original warrant was read to the accused, who admitted he was the person .named in the warrant. “I have nothing to say,” he said. I have been wondering how long it would be.” The accused was taken to his lodgings in Parnell, where he told the proprietress he was married, and had been separated from hie wife for seven years. '“I thought she hid gone to Canada and was dead. I married again in 1923, but divorced that wife because she went to live with another man. I consider I was free,” he said. He added that he was first married in 1916, and that it was a war marriage. " I think I will get out of the second charge,” told witness. “She will not give evidence against me, or she will be in it herself.’”

Replying to counsel for the accused, witness said that Harris came .to New Zealand under hig correct name, and lived under his correct name. He made no attempt to conceal his iden'tity. Mr I. K. Hunt, S.M.i He did not marry the last two women under his own name.

Chief Detective Hammond then asked that the accused be sent to Wellington to be surrendered at the expiry of 15 days and afterward to be sent back to under “The Fugitive Offenders’ Act, 1927. The Magistrate made .'the order.