BIGAMOUS MARRIAGE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 270, 15 November 1932, Page 8

BIGAMOUS MARRIAGE

DIFFICULT AUCKLAND CASE HIS HONOCR'S DECISION [ Per Press Association.] AUCKLAND, Nov. 14. Staring that he found the case an exceedingly difficult one. Mr Justice Smith, in the Supremo Court, adjourned until afternoon a charge against Henry Oliver Nelson, aged 35, of having committed bigamy. . Mr King said that Nelson was married in 1917 in England and later went through a form of marriage with a Miss McCallum in New Zealand. According to her own evidence, she knew that Nelson had been previously married. Nelson said he had received letters from his mother saying that he was free and he presumed that he was free to marry. His legal wife in England had apparently commit ted bigamy and had married again. There were no children by the prior marriage. Miss McCallum, with whom he was at present living. now very much regretted her impetuosity in writing to the authorities in England. If he was sentenced to imprisonment she and their child would suffer. After an adjournment His Honour said he had considered the case with some anxiety. Nelson had pleaded guilty to a charge of bigamy, although it he had pleaded not guilty he might have stood a chance of being acquitted by a jury. Nelson joined tho navy when he was 15|, and served through tho war as a stoker. When 19 years old he married a salior’s widow much older than himself, who was a munition worker. He supported her until he left for New Zealand in the Laburnum in 1920, and she was then supported out of his pay until he deserted from the navy in 1924. It would appear that he thought her dead and that she thought him dead. How far those statements would have been accepted by a jury he did not know. His Honour said that iu 1925 Nelson went through a form of marriage with the woman with whom he was now living and they had a child now aged six. In 1929 his wife in England also contracted a bigamous marriage. She had had some punishment other than imprisonment. According to Nelson’s statement, he intended to marry the woman with whom he had been living when a divorce could be obtained. He would

temper justice with mercy and admit Nelson to probation for a period of two years and require him to pay the costs of the prosecution.