DIVORCE ACTION FAILS.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16787, 14 May 1926, Page 5

DIVORCE ACTION FAILS.

MAID’S FABRICATED STORY. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, May 14. An extraordinary position arose in divorce proceedings yesterday, in which Ida Alexandra Eton sought a decree on the grounds of alleged adultery by Major Charles Argle Eton, farmer, of Grey town, with Kate Marley, a 17-year-old maid, in the house. At the commencement of the case , there was a slight confusion of dates of alleged misconduct, but Mr. Treadwell (for petitioner) said the dates in the .petition were according to his instructions. The allegations, based oh the witness Marley’s statements, were that Eton, during his wife’s absence for a few days from Wellington, entered Marley’s room and forcibly assaulted her. She told Mrs. Eton a circumstantial story, which the latter believed. In the witness-box Marley admitted that she had been discharged from seven situations in 12 months for lying, and she p so frequently contradicted her statements land admitted so many misstatements that Mr. Treadwell, after frequent conferences with his client, said he had an application to make, as the witness on whom petitioner chiefly relied had, both in examination anl cross-examination, proved so un- ,s----reliable that both he and his client felt he could go no further; it would be injustice to respondent if a decree were secured on such evidence. He asked leave to withdraw the petition. Mr. G. G. Watson (for respondent) said he could have amply proved the girl’s evidence to be a fabrication