FRENCH GIRL AND DOCTOR

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 177, 17 October 1927, Page 13

FRENCH GIRL AND DOCTOR

WEDDING THAT PROVED DRAMA I think sou are a fraud," said Mr. Hay llalkett, the Marylebone magistrate, when passing sentence of a month’s imprisonment on Raoul Jacob Lion Hillelson Hildebrand de Massa. a Swedish doctor, for offences under the Aliens Act. He was accused of failing to notify the registration officer of his marriage to a young French girl, aged 18, and with making false statements on landing at Dover. With De Massa in the dock was Teresa Gualdi, 52, who was sentenced to 10 days without hard labour for making false statements to alien officials. Both were recommended for deportation. Mr. Barker, prosecuting, said that Gualdi, when at Dover, said she and De Massa were taking the l£ench girl to the Sacred Heart Convent, near Darlington. De Massa said he was the girl’s uncle. Neither statement was true. Instead of going to Darlington, added Mr. Barker, the couple went to London, where De Massa and the girl wero married. M. Anatole Santeme, of the French Embassy, proved the extradition of De Massa in 1898 on a charge of blackmail. De Massa, giving evidence, said that when he saw the aliens officer at Bow Street he described himself as a widower, although he had been mar--1 ried the same day. i Tho Magistrate: You had no more intention of taking that girl to a convent than you had of taking hereto the moon? —I booked a room for her. Did you take her away from her parents against her consent?—l reI fused four times to take her away when she asked me to. She wrote urging me to let her come, saying that I unless I did she would commit suicide, j You know this girl is coming Into j some money when she is 21?—There is i some money. Court officials spoke to De Massa-’s wife, a pretty woman, dr€?ssed in black, but she said she did not want to give evidence for or against her husband.