HEAVY DAMAGES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19841, 16 May 1927, Page 11

HEAVY DAMAGES

A WIFE’S UNFAITHFULNESS CO-RESPONDENT HAS TO PAY UP. [Per Press Association.] AUCKLAND, May 14. Five hundred pounds damages was claimed against the co-respondent in an undefended divorce action yesterday, in which Hector Horatio Barry, a stoker on the warship Diomede, petitioned against Helene Barbara Barry, on the ground of adultery with Percy King, taxi-driver, Devonport. Counsel stated that the damages claimed represented merely petitioner’s financial loss (details being given) through his marred marriage. After hearing evidence by petitioner and a private detective, Mr. Justice Stringer told the jury that there was sufficient proof of adultery. The damages must be based on the value of an unfaithful wife, without regard to petitioner’s outlay in this case. The wife possessed no property, petitioner having paid her passage from England and married her in New Zealand. If it were held that a wife were a loose woman, she was not of much use to her husband, who would be well rid of her. | If, on the othe’- hand a wife had been ■ deliberately seduced the position was ■ different.

The Judge thought that the case case could be met by slight damages, but the jury awarded £350.