SUPREME COURT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25300, 10 August 1943, Page 4

SUPREME COURT

PETITIONS FOR DIVORCE

Mr Justice Kennedy yesterday granted decrees nisi in the divorce proceedings between Earnest Adair Boutcher (petitioner) and Muriel Catherine Boutcher (separation agreement) and Elizabeth Shand (petitioner) and William Duncan Shand (desertion). The petition for divorce by Jessie Arnot Peat (Mr J. S. D. More) against her husband, Arthur Seddon Peat, a labourer (Mr O. G. Stevens), on the grounds of constructive desertion, was defended. The petitioner, in evidence, stated that she had been married on February 24, 1923, and that there were four children of the marriage. She said that her husband had committed acts of crueity to herself and her children, that he was an habitual drunkard, and that he had failed to maintain her or her family. As a rseult of his conduct, she had been forced to leave her home. She had left the home In December, 1938.—Corroborative evidence as to the respondent’s conduct was given by the petitioner’s two married daughters and a woman friend.— The respondent Peat denied that he had ever struck his wife or assaulted any of his children. He also denied the allegations of drunkenness. The chief cause of the trouble between his wife and himself, said witness, was that she was always going out to pictures or to dances. He had asked her to return to their home, and she had refused to,do so.—His Honor said that he would give his judgment this morning,