A WILL CASE

Hokitika Guardian, 29 June 1932, Page 6

A WILL CASE

UNUSUAL EVIDENCE.

(United Press Association—By Electric

Telegraph—Copyright.)

(Received this day at 1.5 p.ih.' LONDON, June 28

Til the Probate Court, the Lord Justice of Appeal, Lord Merivafe, began the hearing of a dispute concerning a million and a quarter sterling estate of late Montagu Stanley Napier, engine manufacturer.

Hen 17 Cooke, Napier’s executor, seeks to propound a will supported by Napier’s brother, Walter. Under this, Mrs Nora Fryer, widow of the; testator’s doctor, is the chief beneficiary. Mrs Napier is contesting this and relies on earliiefi 1 ' will); under which there was an annuity for Walter and for each child. Reference was made to an affair between Napier and Mrs Oadinan, his typist, by whom he had a daughter. Cooke, for Napier, disclosed that trusts amounting to thousands sterling were prepared for them, hut never executed. He added that he was not aware that Napier’s fatlior forced liis wife into a heated room before she was accouched, because lie said’ ’it would benefit the baby’s complexion. Mrs Napier always found fault with her husband, who replied sarcastically, but was too courteous to show he loathed her. Cooke was unaware that Napier was simultaneously engaged to two women in 1897.

Turner Samuels, for Mrs Napier, said when Napier published his marriage announcement he reversed his wife’s name, and gave the wrong register office;, which showed a mental irregularity. He also evidenced that Napier offered hie wife a life annuity, of three thousand sterling, but she insisted on six thousand for their joint lives.