TANGLED MARRIAGE BONDS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 182, 6 August 1935, Page 7

TANGLED MARRIAGE BONDS

WOMAN PETITIONS FOE NULLITY ( Per Press Association. ) 1 WELLINGTON, Aug. 5. Unusual circumstances surrounded a petition for a declaration of nullity of marriage in the Supremo Court today. For petitioner, Harriett Stephens, Mr. C. N. Armstrong explained that respondent, -Charles Callaway, had married Mrs. Elizabeth Hartley in 1923 and had gone through a form of marriage with petitioner in April, 1931. Respondent had been charged with bigamy in November last, but had beer, acquitted by a jury. It appeared that Mrs. Hartley had been married to another man in 1911, but she had not heard from him or of him since 1912. Thy jury seemed to have thought that this first husband might still be living at the time of her second marriage (to Callaway), which would therefore bo invalid. In the case before the Court Mr. Armstrong advanced the legal presumption of death after an absence of seven years, and submitted, therefore, that the marriage between Mrs. Hartley and Callaway was a valid one, BO making the marriage between Callaway and petitioner invalid. After petitioner had given evidence. Mr. Justice Smith granted a decree or nullity of marriage.