WESTLAKE CASE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 76, 20 November 1931, Page 5

WESTLAKE CASE

(Press Assn.—

FURTHER EVIDENCE WIFE- ADMITS HAVING HAD HUSBAND ARRESTED SON'S STORY OF CRUELTY

-By Telegraph — Copyright.)

WELLINGTON, Thursday. The case in which probate of the will and codicil of the late John Brown Westlake, of Pahiatua, was sought in the Supreme Court before Mr. Justice McGregor, was continued to-day. Applicant in the action is the Public Trustee, defendants being Mrs Gatherine Louisa Westlake and others. Under cross-examination Mrs Westlake denied that it was her son Arthur's leaving home and going to live with her relatives that annoyed Westlake and made him bitter towards his son. She had told Arthur to leave home because of his father's treatment of him. Her daughter Grace left home because Westlake told her to go*. Witness thought it was to show his nasty. temper. Counsel: You had Westlake arrested in May, 1928, on information given you by your brother? Witness: "Yes," and when her husband was brought to Pahiatua the proceedings were withdrawn. She had not given proof other than the word of her brother that Westlake was leaving New Zealand, and knew that her husband considered that he had been very unjustly treated hy being arrested. He had tried to get the children to renounce the Catholic faith. Corroborating her mother's story

Grace Westlake said she only remembered hei; father giving her money once. That was one Christmas, when he gave her brother and herself sixpence. Westlake showed no fatherly interest in them, and for years did not speak to witness. She had given her father no cause for offence or mental worry. Witness referred to an oecasion "when as a result of her father threatening to murder her, she went to a policeman's house. She locked her bedroom door every night, on her mother's advice. The evidence of the son, Arthur John Westlake was a recital of harsh and cruel conduct on the part of the father to the children. He said that when he worked on the farm, breaking in rough land, he never received 6d in wages. If he had to go to Pahiatua he had a meal at a shop. Counsel: Who paid for that? Witness: My father. Counsel: How much? Witness: 6d. Witness said he never had money to go to sports with. When 20 years of age he left home to go to his uncle's place at Akaroa. His cousin lent him £10 with which he bought clothes and paid his board. Constable S. 'Hurrell, of Pahiatua, described testator as a man of peenliar ideas at times ; making money seemed to be his hobby. He talked about his family occasionally and witness gathered that he had not much love for them. Joshua John Swigg, a settler, who worked with Westlake for some years : ; and who subsequently bought the ; business from him at Pahiatua, said that Westlake was hard with his son and knocked him about. He never gave him money. The unhappy relations between Westlake and his family at Pahiatua were described by Mrs Radcliffe, of Palmerston North, who boarded with the family for some time at Pahiatua. She thought Westlake decidedly queer, but the mother and children agreed very well together. The hearing was adjourned until to-morrow.