COURT OF APPEAL

Otago Witness, Issue 3524, 27 September 1921, Page 4

COURT OF APPEAL

SENTENCE FOR BIGAM V CONSIDER EH. WELLINGTON, September 20. The Court of Appeal was occupied today in the consideration of an appeal by Allan Raymond George against a sentence of three years’ imprisonment for bigamy, imposed on him at Wellington by Air Justice Saimond. The facts of the case were that the prisoner had in 1917 married a woman who, it was alleged, lie afterwards discovered to be a woman of ill-fame. lie then, in 1920, went through the form of marriage with another woman in Napier. Air C. A. Treadwell, for the prisoner, I contended that the circumstances of the | second marriage were not such as to merit ! the severe sentence. Th character of ac- [ cused. he said, was not oii<■ _ that showed , a settled criminal character. There was, in i addition, he maintained, no epidemic of i bigamy in New Zealand, and therefore no I justification for the severe sentence, j Mr W. C. MacGregor, K.G. (Sohcfiorgeneral), for the Grown, contended that the crime was one of the worst classes of bigamy. There was nothing in tiie prisoner’s favour in the circumstances of the crime nor his character. Brisoner was, he said one of the criminal class. He stated, also' that the crime of bigamy was at present very prevalent in New Zealand. The court reserved its decision. September 21. The Gourt of Appeal this morning considered an appeal by Andrew James Mason against the judgment of Air Justice iiet'dtnan’ dismissing a petition by appellant for a divorce oil the ground of petitioner’s own misconduct., which produced a condition of affairs leading to the wife 9 application for separation three years previously, whereon petitioner based the . divorce application. , , . , Appellant s counsel contended that, iho Appeal Court could review a judge’s decision. There had been a minimum of guilt on the part of the husband, anil if the court could not make a decree in this case there would bo no case in which the court could grant a divorce. Counsel for the respondent said that the granting of such a divorce would result a serious private wrong, as a divorce would entail a stigma on a woman and children. In this case the judge found (fiat ihc husband had been guilty of desertion, and a person could not plead his own wrong a- a ground for claiming right* in a court of justice. Decision was reserved.