DIVORCE PETITION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25798, 20 March 1945, Page 6

DIVORCE PETITION

PRISONER AS CO-RESPONDENT ECHO OF COERCION CASE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Mar. 19. Though at present serving concurrent sentences of three years’ hard labour for compelling a person to sign a document by threat 'of violence, and of one year’s hard labour for assault, Walter Roy • Webster, a salesman, appeared as the respondent in the Supreme Court to-day, before Mr Justice Finlay to defend a divorce petition brought by Ivy Eugene Webster. The petitioner, who said she was married to the respondent in January, 1940, and had three children, alleged that her husband had committed adultery with Dorothy May Reilly in April, 1944, al Cambridge terrace, Wellington, and al an hotel in Foxton. The petitioner gave evidence that she first heard of Mrs Reilly in October, 1943, from Webster himself, who said he was doing a job for Mr Stacey, a solicitor. The petitioner first met her bn February 22. 1944, when she came round to see Webster. He took her up to the sitting-room, and they were behind a locked door for three hours. When the petitioner asked him what it was 'all about, he said it was “ business.” After that Webster would come home in the early hours of the morning, saying he had been with her. At one time, witness said, Webster had £SOO in his possession and said his girl friend would pay the petitioner £2OOO for a divorce. The petitioner said she would gladly accept it. Webster then said she would have to fight for it, but she replied that he and the money were not worth fighting for.

The respondent, who did not give evidence, himself addressed his Honor, denying the allegations made and saying there was not even circumstantial evidence that adultery had been committed. His Honor said he had to ask himself whether the respondent had committed adultery with the corespondent when she was continually surrounded by a "bodyguard.” They were on a criminal venture, but the question was whether adultery was an incident of that. The pair were in an association from which adultery could reasonably and properly be inferred. The respondent’s failure to give evidence himself or call Mrs Reilly left the evidence of the petitioner and her witness uncontradicted.

The petitioner was granted a decree nisi, to be made absolute at the expiration of three months.