TANGLED DIVORCE CASE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17125, 4 December 1929, Page 8

TANGLED DIVORCE CASE

ALL-ROUND ADULTERY PETITION DISMISSED (Received December 4,2 p.m.) j SYDNEY Dec. 4. A tangled divorce case which lasted Sol - seven weeks, with costs totalling from £BGOO to £IO,OOO, ended with the parties as they were at the beginning. Tom S'taubins Bakewell sought a divorce from Mary Gwendoline Bakewell, formerly Bruell, nee Cantwell, onthe ground of adultery with her former husband, Bruell, and another. Mrs. Bakewell denied tiie charge, hut alleged that her husband had committed adultery with three other women, and claimed a- judicial separation on those grounds. The judgment traversed the strange history ot the marital relationship. In 1921 Mrs. Bakewell, then Mrs. Bruell, sought a divorce from Bruell on the ground of adultery. The suit was un-defended,-and a decree was granted, but the Grown intervened and the decree was rescinded because it was shown that false evidence had been given, and also that at the time the petition was filed Mrs. Bruell was living in adultery with Bakewell, her present husband. Three years later Bruell was granted a. divorce on the grounds of his wife's adultery with Bakewell, who subsequently married her.

Mr. Justice Owen’s judgment took 90 minutes to deliver. The case was (lie longest and most expensive in New South Wales .State legal records. The judge found that all the allegations of adultery on both sides were proved, and dismissed •the suits and ordered Bakewell to pay His wife’s costs.