STRANGE DIVORCE CASE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 837, 4 December 1929, Page 11

STRANGE DIVORCE CASE

LONG AND EXPENSIVE SUIT EXTRAORDINARY TANGLE Reed. 2.15 p.m. SYDNEY, Today. A tangled divorce case which lasted for seven weeks with costs totalling £B,OOO to £IO,OOO ended with the parties as they were at the beginning. r FOM Staubins Bakewell sought divorce from Mary Gwendoline Bakewell, formerly Mrs. Bruell, nee Cantwell, on the ground of adultery with her former husband. Bruell and another Mrs. Bakewell denied the charge but alleged the husband committed adultery with three other women and claimed a judicial separation on those grounds. A strange history of marital relationships was traversed. In 1921 IvirsBakewell, then Mrs. Bruell, sought a divorce from Bruell on the grounds of adultery. The suit was undefended and a decree granted, but the Crown intervened and the decree was rescinded because it was shown that false evidence had been given, also that at the time the petition was filed Mrs.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 ground of liis wife’s adultery with Bakewell, who subsequently married her. * Mr. Justice Owen’s judgment took 90 minutes to deliver. The case was the longest and m6st expensive in the New South Wales State legal records. The Judge found all allegations of adultery on both sides proved, dismissed the suits and ordered Bakewell to pay the wife’s costs.