CHARGE OF BIGAMY ADMITTED

Southland Times, Issue 23624, 27 September 1938, Page 3

CHARGE OF BIGAMY ADMITTED

ENGINEER COMMITTED FOR SENTENCE CHRISTCHURCH, September 26. Pleading guilty to a charge of bigamy, Claude Albert Taylor, an engineer, today was committed for sentence at the next sessions of the Supreme Court Evidence given in the Magistrate’s Court before Mr F. F. Reid, S.M., was to the effect that the accused married one woman in 1932, there being four children of the marriage, and went through a form of marriage with another woman last year. There was one child of the bigamous marriage.

Gertrude Helena Taylor, whose maiden name had been Moore, said she had married the accused at St. Peter’s Manse, Woolston, on June 30, 1932. There'were four children of the marriage. Her husband had told her that in September last year he had gone through a form of marriage with Mary Harvey. The witness finally broke the news to Miss Harvey and for some time after that the three, the witness, the accused and Miss Harvey, lived in the same house.

The witness said she had pot made a complaint because Miss Harvey was going to have a child. Mary Harriet Harvey, aged 24, said when she was keeping company with the accused she thought he was a single man. On September 1, 1937, the witness went through a marriage ceremony with the accused at an Auckland Methodist parsonage. Detective R. H. Watt read a statement by the accused admitting both marriage ceremonies. On another charge, to which Taylor pleaded guilty, of obtaining £l5 10/by false pretences, he was remanded for sentence in the Magistrate’s Court next month.