SUPPRESSING EVIDENCE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 428, 9 August 1928, Page 13

SUPPRESSING EVIDENCE

PARTIES TO DIVORCE SIGN AGREEMENT JUDGE HOLDS IT BINDING Press Association. WELLINGTON, To-day. Mr. E. Page, S.M., to-day held legally binding an agreement entered into by a co-respondent in a divorce action to pay the petitioner £SO on condition that certain evidence was not offered. Mr. Samuel Hosking Lake, engineer at Porirua, was the plaintiff, and Henry H. Edwards, of the Porirua Mental Hospital staff, the defendant. In June Lake petitioned for divorce from liis wife on the grounds of adultery, drunkenness and neglect of her domestic duties. Two persons were joined as co-respondents, one being the defendant. An agreement was entered into between the petitioner, the respondent and the two co-respondents, whereby it was agreed, inter alia, first that the petitioner would offer no evidence in support of the charges of adultery, and second that the respondent would withdraw her defence to the charges of drunkenness and neglect of her domestic duties, and that the husband’s petition on those charges would go undefended. As part of the agreement corespondents each undertook to pay a sum of money, the defendant’s amount being £SO. The other £75 claim was resisted on the ground of being contrary to public policy. Mr. Page held that the amounts were in the nature of costs.