KING’S PROCTOR

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20260, 31 July 1937, Page 27 (Supplement)

KING’S PROCTOR

RELATION TO SOLICITORS. DIVORCE JUDGE’S STATEMENT. (Times Air Mail Service.) LONDON, July 7. An Important announcement on the relation of Divorce Court -solicitors to the office of King’s Proctor was made by Mr Justice Langton In the Divorce Court yesterday, when he delivered Judgment granting a decree nisi to Mrs Sophia Patricia Davis Pakenham, Ward Avenue, Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland, for divorce from Lieutenant Raymond Beresford Pakenham, attached to the Royal Air Force. More Information Desired. Mr Justice Langton said that when the case was before him on February 9 he was left in doubt as to the iden- ! tity of the woman named in the case, and it seemed right, as she was defending the case, that he should have more information. He requested the King’s Proctor to clear up this question as to her identity. The position to-day was that no further information had been obtained. Adultery was plainly proved, and in view of the fact that his lordship was not satisfied as to the identity of the woman he granted Mrs Pakenham a decree nisi, with costs, on a finding of adultery by her husband with a , "woman unknown.” The solicitor for the woman named had taken action which he was frank enough to explain to the court. He started under the grave misunderstanding that he imagined that the King’s Proctor, when requested by the court to investigate a malter concerning a divorce case, had no other ! and greater duty, and no other and ' separate position, than that of an | ordinary solicitor engaged in the case. | * “Wrong Conception.” | “To my mind,” said Mr Justice 1 Langton. “that is a wholly wrong conception of the King’s Proctor’s duties and office. The King’s Proctor, when asked by the c<uirt to investigate a certain matter, has a duty quite different from and other than the duty of a solicitor engaged in the case. The King’s Proctor saw fit in this case, in ! discharge of his duty, to Instruct an agent in Manchester to approach direct the woman named. “When he heard of this the solicitor took umbrage, and although ho (the Judge) was satisfied that he was feompletelv wrong, he had a certain sympathy with him in that a solicitor, : keenly concerned and keenly insistent on his client’s interests, might well wish and hope Mint he should have the first, and every opportunity of advising and assisting Mint client in the litigation untrnsled to him.