THE KING’S PROCTOR.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16627, 24 October 1925, Page 7

THE KING’S PROCTOR.

FOILING DIVORCE PLOTS. Very little known to the public is the King’s Proctor, whose name crops up frequently in reports of English divorce cases. What are his functions? So far as divorce is concerned, he may intervene in a suit- for the purpose of proving collusion -between tho parties; and he may also, as one of the community, show why a decree nisi should not be made absolute. In practice he intervenes -only after investigations carried out by his staff in all parts of the country, and many are the strange cases dealt with by his department, One day an anonymous correspondent stated that a certain man who had obtained a decree nisi was living with a woman. As inquiry showed that the statement was true, the King’s Proctor intervened when the Court was asked to make the decree absolute, whereupon the man proved that “woman in the case” Was his sister! Another correspondent made serious allegations against a husband who had been granted a decree nisi. There was not time to investigate the charges fully, but on the evidence obtained the King’s Proctor felt justified in intervening. Two hours previously the husband, assuming that the-de-cree nisi would be made absolute, as a matter of course, had married again. So the intervention made both him and his wife bigamists! Naturally they were much distressed. Fortunately for them, however. the King’s Proctor found on further inquiry that there was no foundation for the charges that had been made, and the intervention was withdrawn. In a case of a different kind a surprising discovery was made. It was round that a man who had posed before the Court as an injured innocent, had been leading a double life for years. He bad, in addition to his acknowledged home, a secret one in another suburb, with a supplementary “wife” and family. Of course, the decree nisi lie had obtained was pot made absolute. Equally startling was the result of inquiries in another strange suit that came before the Court. Husband and wifo hatched a plot to obtain a divorce .drawing up an agreement which both signed. In this it was stipulated

that he should strike her in order that she could gjtv)e (evidence- of cruelty. Slio accordingly sat in a chair, and then handed him a stick with which to deliver the blow. He complied. “Harder,” she cried, “or there will be no marks!” So ho struck her again, this time with such force that- the scream she uttered was much louder than had been arranged. It served, however, as a cue to the landlady, who, coming to the room, was a witness' to the “cruelty.” No less impudent was another plot unmasked by the King’s Proctor. When a petition by a wife came on, the judge adjourned the case for evidence of cruelty. At the next hearing a certain man said that he had lived in tho same street as tlie couple, and that he had seen the husband ill-treat his wife .whereupon a decree nisi was granted.

Inquiries proved that the witness to cruelty had given a false name and address, and that for some time he had lived with the petitioner. The divorce proceedings, in fact, were as collusive as they could possibly be. In another real-life pl-ot it was found that the ostensibly innocent party—the husband —had skilfully brought about meetings between his wife and one of her old admirers as a means of prosecuting his -own design which was to divorce her and many another woman. The “other woman was attractive, and had- recently inherited a fortune.