DECREE FOR GOLF EXCHAMPION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23702, 9 January 1939, Page 9

DECREE FOR GOLF EXCHAMPION

PROCTOR’S INTERVENTION (From Our Own Correspondent) (By Air Mail) LONDON, Dec. 15. Mr Eric Martin Smith, the 1931 amateur golf champion, who lives at Wyndham place, W., was granted a decree nisi by Mr Justice Bucknill, in the divorce court against his wife, Dorothy Joan. Sir Westrow Hulse was cited as co-respondent. There is one child of Mr and Mrs Martin Smith’s marriage, which took place in 1932, when the husband was 23. A former marriage of the wife had been dissolved. Mr Martin Smith’s case was that the marriage was happy for only a brief time, owing to differences in taste. Adultery was alleged to have been committed at Breamore, Sir Westrow Hulse’s Hampshire home and at a Cannes hotel.

Giving his decision, Mr Justice Bucknill remarked that Mrs Martin Smith denied adultery, but had not gone into the box to do so. He was satisfied that adultery had been committed. The case was unusual, because the wife obtained a decree nisi in December, 1935, on the ground of her husband’s adultery. That decree was rescinded at the Instigation of the King’s Proctor because of the wife’s adultery with the present co-respon-dent, which had never been disclosed to the court. The parties remained tied together, the husband now sought a decree, asking the court to exercise discretion in his favour regarding his own adultery. Mr Justice Bucknill continued: Lady Hulse’s Marriage “The husband and wife separated in November, 1934, and in the following February the husband, to provide his wife with evidence for divorce, stayed with a prostitute at an hotel two nights and committed adultery—a very wrong and foolish thing to do." Mr Justice Bucknill said that he would not exercise discretion in this case if the result would be that anybody thought he could commit adultery to provide his wife with evidence, and then, when her suit failed, could come forward himself and ask the court to exercise discretion in his favour.

Reading Lady Hulse's affidavit, and seeing the way in which Mrs Martin Smith behaved to her and the result of her conduct on Lady Hulse’s marriage, the judge was satisfied that a reconciliation was quite impossible in this case.

He did not think that the adultery of Mr Martin Smith had conduced in any way to that of his wife. Lady Hulse’s marriage had been destroyed. The judge added: “Although I have had very grave doubts about the case, on reflection, I think I am justified in exercising my discretion in the petitioner’s favour.” Mr Justice Bucknill approved an arrangement whereby Mr Martin Smith agreed to an order for a yearly payment of £260, less tax, to his wife.