Jusephine Williame (Petitioner) v Clarence Allister Williams
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE WILLMER,LORD JUSTICE DONOVAN,LORD JUSTICE DAVIES |
| Judgment Date | 12 July 1962 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1962] EWCA Civ J0712-3 |
| Date | 12 July 1962 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Docket Number | W. 1959 (D) No. 145 |
[1962] EWCA Civ J0712-3
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
(From Mr. Commissioner Gallop. Q. C.)
Lord Justice Willmer
Lord Justice Donovan and
Lord Justice Davies
MR. J. F. COMYN, Q. C. and MR. GYN KORGAN (instructed by Messrs. Collyer-Bristow & Co., agents for Messrs. Granville West Chivers & Dunford, Pontypool) appeared as Counsel on behalf of the Appellant (Wife).
MR. J. B. LATEY, Q. C. and MR. C. N. PITCHFORD (instructed by S. Pearlman, Esq., agent for Messrs, then Morgan & Shibko, Cardiff) appeared as Counsel on behalf of the Respondent (Husband).
This is an appeal from a Judgment of Mr. Commissioner Gallop, given on 8th February 1962, whereby he dismissed a wife's petition for divorce on the ground of cruelty.
The main question raised by the appeal is with regard to the application of the principles of the M'Naghten rules, more particularly the second limb thereof, to a petition for cruelty where it is shown that during the material period the respondent was suffering from a disease of the mind.
The so-called M'Naghten rules were contained in the advice tendered by the Judges, following the decision of M'Naghten'e case, (1843), 10 Clark and Flnnelly, 200, and provide as follows: "It must be clearly proved that at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was labouring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know that he was doing what was wrong".
I have not found the question we have to decide at all easy of solution, and it has not been made any easier for me by the fact that my brethren take divergent views. I confess that my own mind has fluctuated, both during the argument and since its conclusion. In the end, however, I have come to the conclusion that there is no reason to interfere with the decision arrived at by the learned Commissioner. I am not satisfied, in all the circumstances of the case, that the husband has been proved to have treated the wife with cruelty.
The parties were married on 26th December 1943, and there are four children of the marriage, a eon and three daughters, born respectively in 1944, 1945, 1948 and 1949. They resided together in Pontypool, the final matrimonial home being at 56, Oaklands Road, Sebastopol. The husband was a coal miner, though it appears to be the fact that from time to time he engaged in other occupations.
Early in 1954 the husband began to display symptoms ofmental disorder, and on 17th August of that year he was admitted as a voluntary patient to the Abergavenny Mental Hospital. There he came under the care of Dr. Wales, now medical superintendent of the hospital, who has been responsible for his treatment ever since. Dr. Wales gave evidence at the trial, and said that the husband was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia; this caused him to believe that he was persecuted by people unknown, and he was harassed by auditory hallucinations. The husband discharged himself from hospital on 12th November 1954, but within six days he was readmitted as a certified patient. He then remained In hospital for over four years, being regraded to voluntary status on 23rd October 1958. During the whole of this period he was allowed to return home on leave on frequent occasions, and during these periods of leave he resumed cohabitation with his wife. On 21st March 1959 the husband again discharged himself and once more returned to the matrimonial home. The wife, however, refused to have anything to do with him, and complained of his behaviour towards her, the principal complaint being that he persecuted her by constantly accusing her, without any Justification, of misbehaviour with other men. On 2Cth Kay 1959 the wife presented her petition, alleging cruelty against the husband. At that time the husband was still living at the matrimonial home, and continued to do so until 7th December 1959, when he was readmitted to hospital. As I understand it, he has been there ever since, and the prognosis is not favourable.
The wife's allegations of cruelty fall under three heads. The first ground of complaint, which relates to the period up to the husband's admission to hospital in 1954, is that throughout the whole of that period the husband repeatedly came home, especially on Saturday nights and Bank Holidays, in a disgustinglydrunk condition, which usually resulted in his vomiting and urinating in the bed. Secondly, the wife complained of an incident of violence which took place in 1958 during one of the periods when the husband was staying in the matrimonial home on leave. The husband had apparently chastised the eldest child, then a boy of about fourteen. The wife intervened in defence of her son, and struck the husband on the back with a stick. She said that the husband bundled the boy upstairs, and then came down and Btruck her on the body with his fist, causing her pain.
Thirdly - and this is the most important part of her case the wife complained that since early 1954, in the period before he was admitted to hospital, during his frequent leaves, and in the period following his discharge in March 1959, the husband constantly accused her, to the point of persecution, of improper association with other men. She alleged that in consequence of the treatment she received she suffered in health, and this was corroborated by the evidence of Dr. Jarman, the family doctor. The wife, it appears, suffered from asthma, and Dr. Jarman gave evidence to the effect that bouts of asthma were liable to be precipitated in a patient suffering from a nervous or anxiety state.
With regard to the first of these complaints, the learned Commissioner found that the husband's drunken behaviour during the earlier part of the marriage did not amount to cruelty. He said: "The wife was demurring, no doubt, up to 1954, when the husband got drunk, but I think she had taken it as the hard lot of a coal miner's wife. I do not think that it was made an issue in the sense that the marriage was being imperiled. The wife never said so or thought so. I accept the argument that in the case of Baker v. Baker the notion that a man could do what he liked"as to drink has been negatived. If a man gets so drunk as to make the wife's life a misery, and Jeopardise her health, that can be cruelty. I do not feel Justified in making a finding that the wife's health was thus Jeopardised, I think she was disgusted and revolted but sufficiently resilient at that time to make the beet of an extremely bad situation, and therefore that allegation is not established as cruelty".
The second complaint, namely that relating to the alleged Incident of violence in 1958, was dismissed by the learned Commissioner as a trivial matter. He said: "That can be discarded altogether. It was one minor incident in a marriage which had endured from 1943 until the husband's reception into hospital in 1954 without any other suggestion of violence. Indeed, the wife said that the husband was a kind and good man had it not been for his drinking".
With regard to the third and most important complaint, namely that of constant accusations of adultery, the learned Commissioner summarised the relevant facts as follows: "A prominent feature of the husband's malady was auditory delusions. There were voices. He said at one stage the voices were three men and a woman. The voices were telling him his wife was committing adultery with numbers of men, and the voices generally told him that she had these men up in the loft of the house. Before going to hospital, and during his periodical leaves, and again during this period of nine months in 1959, the voices persisted, and the husband accused the wife of these innumerable adulteries. If she tried to get away from him he would follow her about the house for as long as ten minutes sometimes. Sometimes he would climb up into the loft to find the men. On one occasion, I think in 1958, he took a knife and went out to find the persons whose voices he was"hearing, apparently in order to attack them. He had other delusions which must have been painful for him to bear; that a relative had been hanged, that a child of his had been murdered, are examples. I do not think the wife spoke about them, but Dr. Wales told the court about them.
The wife happened to be an asthmatic since she was a girl. I hold that the condition was either aggravated or its amelioration impeded by this constant conduct of her husband. She triad to reason with him, but, as Dr. Wales explained, the patient is inaccessible. He is in a world apart. Irrespective of asthma, I am sure that it must eventually have injured her health. How can any sensitive wife, or any wife, be pursued, year after year, by accusations from her husband that she is committing adultery all the time without it Jeopardising her health? Therefore, as Mr. Pitchford very helpfully acknowledged, there can be no answer to this case unless the second limb of the M'Naghten rules applies.
Dr. Wales said in terms that when the husband made the accusations against the wife, he knew what he was doing. He certainly did not know that his accusations of adultery were wrong in any sense of the word. That was scarcely in dispute when the medical evidence had been heard".
The learned Commissioner then proceeded to consider a number of authorities to which he had been referred, particularly the decisions of this Court in ( White v. White 1950) Probate, 39, ( Swan v. Swan 1953) Probate, 258, and ( Palmer v. Palmer 1955) Probate, 4, in which the relevance of the M'Naghten rules to a petition for cruelty has been considered. He expressed the view that there was no decision of the Court of Appeal by way of ...
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