NUN DESERTS

Taranaki Daily News, 1 July 1921, Page 5

NUN DESERTS

SERIOUS CHARGES MADE. CLAIM AGAINST CATHOLIC BISHOP. ECHO OF REMARKABLE CASE. By Telegraph.—Press Assn. —Copyright. Received July 1, 12.40 a.m. Sydney, June 30. The hearing was commenced of a case in. which ex-Sister Ligouri is suing Bishop Dwyer, Roman Catholic Bishop of Wagga, for alleged malicious arrest, whereby her reputation was injured and she suffered great pain of body and mind. Plaintiff claims £5OOO damages. Defendant pleads not guilty, and disclaims causing plaintiff’s arrest or imprisonment. Great public interest was displayed and the Court was crowded, a long queue waiting outside for hours before the Court opened. A strong bar is engaged on each side. Counsel for plaintiff submitted a letter written by plaintiff to Bishop Dwyer after she left the convent, in which she stated that her health broke down at the convent and when she asked for medicine a doctor gave her poison to end her life.

Cross-examined, ex-Sister Ligouri stated that when she returned to the convent after she first escaped she was given a dose of castor oil, the sister who gave it to her saying: “Here’s your dose of oil; when you have had this you will not want another dose; you won’t get out of bed for the next six months.” Becoming alarmed after taking the oil she drank soapy water as an emetic and while the sister was out of the room she escaped in her night dress to a house near-by. She came thence to Sydney, where she was arrested.

[ln August last year Sister Ligouri, a nun at the convent at Wagga, escaped at night in her night attire. She was taken to Sydney, where she took refuge in the house of a Congregational minister until arrested under a warrant issued at the instance of the Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese, the information setting out that Bridget Partridge, otherwise Sister Ligouri, was a person deemed insane and without sufficient means of “support”. On this charge she was tried, but she was found to be sane, and was immediately discharged.]