PARENTS SEPARATE MARRIED COUPLE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 145, 20 June 1931, Page 23 (Supplement)

PARENTS SEPARATE MARRIED COUPLE.

YOUNG HUSBAND WILL BRING COURT ACTION

(Special to the “Star.”) SYDNEY. June 5. If it be true that all the world loves a lover, especially one of the determined kind, then the eyes pf the world should be focused upon Perth, West Australia. There a young husband is waging a battle to win his bride, for, though they have been married, the girl’s parents have kept her imprisoned, and will not allow her young husband to visit her.

This somewhat unusual story started last Saturday, when, at St George’s Cathedral, the Dean of Perth was about to proclaim John Garrigan, twenty-one, and May Beattie, eighteen, man and wife. The girl’s mother rose in the body of the church and objected to the marriage. The ceremony was stopped when the mother announced that the girl was under age, and that she was marrying against the wishes of her parents.

Armed with the marriage license, the young couple left the church, and later in the day were married by another clergyman, who knew nothing of the previous contretemps. The girl’s father announced later that he intended to move for the annulment of the marriage. “We have nothing against Garrigan, who is a nice young chap,’ he said, “ but he has been out of work for the past fifteen months, and we consider that both of them are too young to start married life in the circumstances.” He explained that the young couple had been sweethearts for years, and had kept their marriage plans a deep secret. Although they managed to steal a march on their parents in the matter of the marriage ceremony, their triumph was short-lived, for the parents followed them and seized the girl the same afternoon, taking her back to their own home, and refusing to allow Garrigan to see her unless one of them was present. ** So soon as he makes good, he can have his girl back,” the father announced later.

However, the young man has not

allowed the grass to grow under his feet, and has instituted an action through the Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus directed to the father. A legal battle of dimensions that neither side anticipated is looming, and all Perth is watchiner the romance develop.