OPPOSED TO FATHER

NZ Truth, Issue 1262, 6 February 1930, Page 7

OPPOSED TO FATHER

Children's Evidence "Valueless"

CASE DISMISSED

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Dunedin Rep.) WHEN children' are called m- the Maintenance Gourt.'to give evidence against one or the other of their parents, magistrates, have to be very wary. ' ■ This was made clear m the Dunedin Maintenance Court when Mr. H. W. Bundle, S.M., dismissed as %'alueless the evidence of a daughter and a son who showed distinct prejudice against their father. • On the grounds that her husband had failed ' to maintain her and had treated her with persistent cruelty, Violet Laviana Hancock applied to the court for. a separation and maintenance order. Mrs. Hancock told the court of incidents m what she described as a very unhappy home. Her hus- • band, she said, had once hit her on the head with a pot; on another occasion he had indulged m the caveman pastime of dragging her by the hair, and she had once collected .from him a choice black eye. Before coming to Dunedin the family lived at Morerrewa (Bay of Islands) where Hancock, the wife alleged, had commenced ill-treating her. she had been earning her own living as a cook at the Braernar Hospital. Examined at length by Mr. Hanlon, Mrs. Hancock denied that there had been anything betn een herself and a man named Young- who had been boarding at the house. Thomas Arthur Phillip Richard Hancock, aged 17," son of the complainant, corroborated his mother's evidence. His attitude while being crossexamined by defending: counsel was such that counsel referred^ to him as a "very precocious youth." Katherine Mh'ian Hancock, the daughter, aged 16, when giving her evidence, also displayed some feeling against her father. Hanpock was not called upon to give evidence, the magistrate remarking that he could not accept the evidence of the^on and daughter as corroboration. JV Both children, his Worship said, showed distinctly that they were opposed to the father, and therefore he would treat their evidence as valueless. The application was dismissed. , ■