QUEER DIVORCE SUIT.

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17839, 11 October 1929, Page 7

QUEER DIVORCE SUIT.

WRIT REFUSED

“WALK IN, WALK OUT” CASE

JUDGE FINDS COLLUSION. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, Friday. On the ground that there was a collusive agreement between all parties Judge Smith to-day dismissed the petition for divorce between John Percival Smith (petitioner), Beatrice Smith (respondent) and Joseph Archibald McLean (co-respondent). The parties

were neighbours at Kaiwaka. The case was remarkable for agreements said to have been entered into between Smith and McLean, by which the latter was to buy Smith’s farm and marry his wife when she had been divorced and to give- her and her children a home. It was understood that petitioner would not claim damages and that the divorce proceedings would not be defended. His Honour found that the suit was Instituted pursuant to a collusive agreement and that was sufficient to require the Court to dismiss the petition. Petitioner did not abandon the suit and file a fresh petition free from the collusive taint. The force of the collusion had not been spent before the Institution of the suit. Petitioner therefore could not claim the benefit of either of the mitigating circumstances quoted by counsel.