WIFE’S CRUISES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23688, 21 December 1938, Page 12

WIFE’S CRUISES

DIVORCE COURT PETITION NAVAL OFFICER CITES WING COMMANDER (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mall) LONDON, Nov. 18. Substantial disagreement among the jurymen was revealed during the hearing in the Divorce t Court of a petition by Lieutenant-commander Roland Charlton Allen, R.N., of Lindengardens, Netting Hill, W., for divorce from Mrs Mora Allen, \vho lives at Pit Farm road, Guildford. The jury was discharged. Lieut.-commander Allen charged his wife with adultery with Wing-com-mander John Valentine Steele, of the R.A.F., and claimed damages from him. The allegation was denied. Lieut.-comrpander and Mrs Allen were married in July, 1925, and there are three children. Sir Boyd Merriman, summing up, said that if the jury were satisfied that there was a guilty affection between Mrs Allen and Wing-commander Steele it could not be disputed that there had been ample opportunity to indulge it. The jury could consider whether the constant week-end visits of Wini-com-mander Steele to Mrs Allen's house at Guildford, sometimes alone, and two prolonged cruises which they made to America, one of them occurring within a few months of their first meeting, were not of themselves some evidence that the attraction between these two people was more than that of friendship. HUSBAND’S INFERENCE The jury had been asked by Lt.commander Allen to draw the inference that they were undertaken because Mrs Allen and the wing-com-mander wanted to commit adultery. There had not been any sort of evidence from the shipping company of any sort of indiscreet conduct on either cruise, but there was evidence from fellow-passengers in the ship that they did not see the slightest sign of undue intimacy or affection. Except for a statement by one of Mrs Allen’s servants, there had been no evidence of any act of endearment between Mrs Allen and Wing-com-mander Steele at her house. . On the other hand, those witnesses called by her from her household all said they had never seen anything wrong between them.

WIFE’S “CONSIDERABLE” MEANS Dealing with the question of damages, Sir Boyd Merriman said Lt.commander Allen was living on his pay, and his wife was a woman of considerable means. It was as certain as anything could be that Wingcommander Steele had nothing to do with a breach in their matrimonial relations, which had occurred in 1934 at a time when the wife and Wing commander Steele did not know each other.

Correspondence showed, if the wife's story was accepted, and the husband’s rejected, that something in the nature of an irrevocable revulsion of feeling had occurred long before Wing-com-mander Steele came on the scene. After an hour’s deliberation the jury asked if a majority verdict would be accepted. Sir Boyd Merriman: I could not do that except with the full consent of the parties, and I do not think they ought to be asked to consent. The judge asked if there was substantial disagreement between two parts of the jury, and the foreman said there was.

Sir Boyd Merriman said in those circumstances the jury would be discharged.