LOVE-SMITTEN NURSE
"Made Doctor's Life a Burden" Her love unrequitted, a nurse, aged 25, who became "an intolerable nuisance" to a Folkestone doctor, was ordered by Mr. Justice Wrottesley in the Vacation Court to stop "besetting" him and loitering outside his house. Dr. Douglas Newton Seth-Smith alleged that Nurse Elizabeth Speiler, whom he had assisted, had assauited and molested him, tclephoned at frequent intervals during the night and defamed him. Miss Speiler did not appear. Mr. G. H. Newsom, for Dr. SethSmith, said that Miss Speiler had made it her business for many months to make the doctor 's life a burden. Dr. Seth-Smith felt sorry for her as she was an orphan, but did not form a very high opinion of her capabilities, providing her with cases where a more experienced nurse was not required. Later she came to his waiting-room at Folkestone, became insulting and asked him for more nursing cases. On one occasion she came to his consulting room, asked for work and suddenly said: "You know I love you and would do anything for you.'' She asked him to kiss her. When he pushed her away, she said: "At least be friendly with me." That incident was a great " shock to Dr. Seth-Smith, who stated that he had no idea of the state of her feelings towards him, and had never given her any reason for it. She rang hira up frequentiy and he could not leave the receiver off on account of professional calls. The molestation took various forms. She broke into his house on one occasion and had on several occasions got into his garden and garage. On August 18, 20 and 22 she assauited him. She rang him up at 11 p.m., 1.30 a.m. and 3.20 a.m. On August 22 she loitered about in the street for him on three occasionsv once accosting him. With regard to libels and slanders; Dr. Seth-Smith desired to restrain hcr from making statements that he had acted dishonourably towards her or that he was generally a man of a dishonourable charaeter. The application was granted.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/HBHETR19371129.2.95
Bibliographic details
Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 56, 29 November 1937, Page 8
Word Count
348LOVE-SMITTEN NURSE Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 56, 29 November 1937, Page 8
Using This Item
NZME is the copyright owner for the Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of NZME. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in