BIGAMY

Hokitika Guardian, 22 December 1930, Page 6

BIGAMY

NAVAL DESERTER . CONVICTED

AUCKLAND, December 19

A bigamist who manned a young woman in Devonport last June when lie had a wife in England was sent to gaol for three years when, he appeared for sentence before Air Justice Smith in the Supreme Court. The prisoner was George Lionel Allen, aged twenty-five, a steward, for whom Air Schramm appeared. Immediately after the offence the prisoner deserted from the. New Zealand Division of the Navy, said Alt Schramm, in order to cover up his present offence. He had 1 been in the Navy for seven years and had come out to New Zealand on one of the warships from England. For his desertion ne had been sentenced to ninety days imprisonment. The fact that lie had married in New Zealand became known to the naval authorities when his second wife made claims on his pay. In the period during which he lived with his second wife lie treated her well, and counsel asked the court to make the sentence as light as possible. His Honour described it as a deliberate offence of bigamy. Apparently the wife in England wrote several times a week and there was no reason whatever for the prisoner to believe that she was dead. Notwithstanding that, he deliberately married a woman in Devonport and did her a cruel wrong as lie must realise. In passing sen-, tence of three, years’ hard labour his Honour said the circumstances were such that the sentence must be a deterrent.