TANGLED DIVORCE CASE COSTS £8OOO.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18935, 4 December 1929, Page 10

TANGLED DIVORCE CASE COSTS £BOOO.

JUDGE DISMISSES SUITS, AND PARTIES REMAIN WITH KNOT STILL TIED. <Unlted Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Received December 4, 12.55 p.m.) SYDNEY, December 4. A tangled divorce case, which lasted seven w T eeks, the costs totalling from £BOOO to £IO,OOO, ended with the parties as they were at the beginning. Tom St Aubins Bake well sought a 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 that her husband had committed adultery with three other women, and claimed a judicial separation on ihose grounds. The judgment traversed the strange history of their marital relationships. In 1921 Mrs Bakewell, then Mrs Bruell, sought a divorce from Bruell on the ground of his adultery. The suit was undefended, and a decree was granted, but the Crown intervened and the decree was rescinded, because it was shown that false evidence had been given and also that, at the time the petition was filed, Mrs Bruell was living in adultery with Bakewell,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 ground of his wife’s adultery with Bakewell, who subsequently married her. Mr Justice Owen’s judgment took ninety minutes to deliver. The case was the longest and most expensive in New South Wales State legal records. The judge found that all allegations of adultery on both sides had been proved. He dismissed the suits and ordered Bakewell to pay his wife’s costs.