MARRIED IN HASTE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3334, 6 February 1918, Page 52

MARRIED IN HASTE.

(Feom Oue Own Correspondent.) LONDON, November 30.. Trooper Vincent F. Roberts, aged 19, of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, was remanded at Lambeth on a charge of bigamy. It was said that he married Brenda Appleyard at Auckland in December, 1916, and on June 2 in London went through a ceremony with Frances Grace Bennett after a two days' acquaintance. Miss Bennett, who is 18, said on May 31, when in Regency street, Westminster, on her way to business. Roberts knocked her bag out of her hand. He picked it up, apologised, and introduced himself as an officer. They met in the evening at Brixton, and went to a picture palace. On, June 2, Roberts again" met her and asked her to marry him. She told him it was " rather sudden," but, as she had had a " tiff" with her mother, she consented. The ceremony took place in the afternoon at St. Jnde's Church, Brixton. She was then 17, but said she was 21, and Roberts, who described himself as a bachelor, gave his age as 22. They lived at the Grosvenor Court Hotel for a ■week, and then went to Stockwell, where she became ill and went to a nursing home, but stayed only two clays, as Roberts did not pay. She is now in the Lambeth Infirmary.