BIG DIVORCE CASE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 257, 29 October 1931, Page 5

BIG DIVORCE CASE.

Legal Costs are Expected to Exceed £30,000. HEARING IN SYDNEY. (Special to the “ Star.”) SYDNEY, October 19. Enormous legal costs—they are expected to reach the region of £30,000 —will be entailed in the Field cross divorce suit, the hearing of which opened before Mr Justice Owen, judge in divorce, to-day. So great was the public interest in the hearing that two hours before the judge called on the case every foot of space in the public gallery was occupied. Thirteen counsel, including four K.C.’s, represent the two principals, the intervener and the three corespondents. In addition, there are the instructing solicitors to be paid. There will be at least 75 witnesses, and at a conservative estimate the case will last 60 days, with costs at £SOO a day. The costs are expected I to constitute a record for divorce proceedings in Australia. During the evidence given in the alimony proceedings on May 28, Mrs Field asked the Registrar in Divorce to allow her £IOO a week pending the hearing of the suit. She was given £SO a week instead, with the consent of her husband. • She told Mr Curtis, K.C., that she considered that her husband was worth £1,000,000. He had bought her fur coats at £6OO each, model frocks at 75 guineas, and the best American shoes at £8 8s a pair. She then told the Court that she had been receiving £l2O a week for 1 the maintenance of the home, in j addition to £SO a week “ pin money.” i -She had, she said, a motor-car valued | at £6OO and she was interested in a j house at Palm Beach Field had ! given his daughter, Neida, £SOOO on her twenty-first birthday. Mrs Field further told Mr Curtis that she was in the habit of spending £4OO with one firm at each race meeting she attended, and that a trip abroad had cost Field between £7OOO and £BOOO, including an item of £3OO for one ermine coat. The house, “ Merrowie,” 131, Birrell Street, Waverley, which her husband owns, she said, was worth £15,000. Ivy Gladys Field, who, before her marriage, was a Miss Ongley, is a good-looking young woman Mrs Field is alleging against her husband, Sydney John Field, a grazier and master butcher, misconduct with Claire Meta Wilson, the wife of John Alexander Wilson, of Phillip Street, Sydney. She also alleges cruelty.