“PERFECT NUISANCE”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 926, 20 March 1930, Page 1

“PERFECT NUISANCE”

WAR MARRIAGE ENDS IN DIVORCE PARTED IN THREE WEEKS "He has not only not paid a penny maintenance to his wife for ten years, but has made a perfect nuisance of himself—created disturbances at her home and assaulted her and her father. In my opinion that justified the wife in refusing to live with him, and the respondent must be deemed to be guilty of desertion.”

Thus Mr. Justice Ostler, in the Supreme Court today, in granting the petition of Wendoline Alice Walton (Mr. Schramm) for dissolution of her marriage with George Carter Walton (Mr. Moody). The petition was based on desertion, or alternatively, that she had been left without reasonable maintenance. The suit was de fended by the husband, who denied his -wife's allegations.

After the marriage ceremony at Wanganui on October 10, 1917, said petitioner, she and her husband went away for honeymoon. In a drunken condition, he behaved in a depraved fashion, and called her vile names on the wedding night. His drunken state and abuse of her continued until they retui-ned three or four days later to Wanganui. Her husband then -went into camp. On both occasions he visited her when on leave he was intoxicated and abused her. On his return from the war in August, 1919, she informed her husband she was unable to live with him on account of his filthy habits. In an argument over the amount of allotment she had drawn he accused her of robbing him, demanded to be reimbursed and refused to maintain her and since then had not paid a penny maintenance. Three times her husband had visited her mother’s house, he had kicked up a noise, broke all the windows once and called her vile names, and accused her of carrying on with another man. He had assaulted her once in the street and on another occasion felled her father and kicked him in the mouth. Twice she had appealed for police protection. FAINTED IN COURT t After recovering from a fainting turn in which she collapsed in the box, she was cross-examined. She admitted that she was so perturbed and disgusted by her husband’s conduct on the wedding night, she decided not to live with him again. She had lived with him only three weeks altogether. For the defence, Mr. Moody contended that the husband had not deserted his wife; she had left and refused to live with him. His Honour: Why is he defending the case?

“I have striven to induce Walton not to defend it,” replied Mr. Moody. “I have done my best to knock some common sense into respondent’s head, without success.”

In evidence, George Carter Walton, the respondent, emphatically denied his wife’s accusations concerning his conduct on the first night of the honeymoon. He asserted that his wife had lived with him in Wellington before he sailed on the troopship. On his return his wife declined to live with him, but would give no reason for her decision. He admitted having assaulted his father-in-law when he was in a fit of temper through having received a bad reception at the house and that he had broken the windows another time because his wife’s mother slammed the door in his fac§. "PACK OF LIES” Under cross-examination by Mr. Schramm, he admitted two convictions for drunkenness, assault, and for bookmaking. He described the testimony of his wife and her mother as a “pack of lies and a frame-up.” He had been drunk “dozens of times,” he said. His Honour accepted the evidence of petitioner and her mother, but he held that testimony alleging that the respondent was a sexual pervert did not prove this charge. The judge considered that respondent had himself to blame for his wife’s refusal to live with him after he returned from the war, because he had disgusted her with his habits and conduct. His Honour added that he had been able to judge the class of man respondent was when he had laughed when his wife fainted in the witness-box.