INHERENT GRAVITY

Waikato Times, Volume 124, Issue 20832, 16 June 1939, Page 9

INHERENT GRAVITY

OFFENCE OF BIGAMY STRICTURES BY CHIEF JUSTICE (By Telegraph.—Press Association) WELLINGTON, Thursday Saying he must look at the inherent B'ravity of the offence when sentencing for bigamy, the Ghief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, sent Maxwell Keith Garner, aged 23, a welder, and Walter Albert Kenneth Webb, ajged 25, a labourer, to prison for twelve months, with hard labour. Uis Honour said it meant, although not always, the ruin of two women’s Jives. That was what it meant from his point of view, and it was no use mincing matters. In one of the cases counsel mentioned that the prisoner had been separated from Ills wife, and there was one child, which brought from tho judge the remark, "Then it means the ruining of one woman’s life.” He also remarked that a man could not be allowed to ruin the lives of women with impunity. In the other case it was stated there was a child of the bigamous marriage, which caused llis Honour lo class it as “worse, if anything, than the other.”