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BIGAMY CASES AT ASSIZES

COLOURED MAN AND GIRL OF 16

JUDGE'S COMMENTS

"You have not had much chance in life yet," said Mr. Justice Singleton at Liverpool Assizes, yesterday, when he bound over Mrs. Ethel Mary Mokorro, aged 22, of West Derby-road, Liverpool.

Mrs. Mokorro pleaded guilty to charges of having, on November 21, 1931, made a false oath for the purpose of procuring a marriage licence and having, on August 2, 1933, bigamously married John Boland.

Mr. W. H. MeNeile, prosecuting, said that in order to obtain a licence for her marriage to Joseph Mokorro (a coloured man) in 1931, the accused made an oath that her name was Ethel Mary Jones and that her age was twenty-two, Her real name was Ethel Mary Bamber and she was then only sixteen. According to her own statement, the accused lived with Mokorro only six months. She met Boland in 1933 and in August of that year they went through a form of marriage.

Cruelly Treated

Mr. J. S. Watson, for the accused, said his client declared that Mokorro knew her correct name and age and that some friends of his induced her to give false particulars. She was more sinned against than sinning. Mokorro, she alleged, treated her cruelly and eventually left her without any money. When she went through the bigamous marriage, she thought her grandmother, with whom she lived, had gad the first marriage annulled. She was now living happily with Boland.

In ordering the accused to be bound over, Mr. Justice Singleton said he was willing to believe that when she gave the false particulars she did not know the seriousness of the offence because she was but a child. The man she married was aged 30, from the West Coast of Africa. She lived with him a short while, but not happily. She would not have expected happiness if she had known a little more of the world. After some years she found a man to whom she became attached and thought she could defeat the law by going through the form of marriage with him. These things could not be done, but she was still a child and did not have much chance in life. She would be given a chance now.

[The article continues with several other cases of bigamy.]

AlanBoyd - My reference to Isle of Wight IS at the east side of Birkdale.  And on a parish boundary.  1st ed 6-inch Lancashire sheet 83, north edge.

I have recently come across an old newspaper advertisement announcing that a man intended to apply for a full public house licence for a beerhouse he owned in Stanley, North West Durham.