Gough v Gough [1956] HCA 61

High Court of Australia Dixon C.J. Webb and Taylor JJ. Gough v Gough [1956] HCA 61

ORDER Appeal dismissed.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

Oct. 15 Dixon C.J.

This appeal is by the petitioner in a wife's suit for dissolution of marriage which was dismissed. The ground of the petition was that the respondent husband had during one year previously repeatedly assaulted and cruelly beaten the petitioner. The suit was commenced on 18th January 1955. The petition was heard by Brereton J., who held that the ground was not made out.

There was also a petition by the husband for a decree for restitution of conjugal rights but that was not supported at the hearing by the husband and was dismissed. In fact, although he filed an appearance and an answer to his wife's petition, he did not appear at the hearing of the two petitions. The parties were married on 6th January 1951, the husband being twenty-seven and the wife twenty-five years of age. There are no children of the marriage. The husband's occupation is given as that of a commercial traveller. The wife has been in employment throughout her married life. In June 1954 her work was at a milk bar in North Sydney. They lived at Willoughby. Her complaint of violence begins with an incident at that time. Her scanty account of it suggests an altercation. She says that in the hall of their residence her husband kicked her "in the seat". Apparently she then left her husband and stayed with her mother for a time but later returned to him. She says that when on one evening he came home from his work her husband pushed the door as she opened it and forced her against the wall: it was quite a severe push but she "was not hurt terribly", which the learned judge construed as meaning that she was not hurt at all. That incident occurred in August 1954. A month later the third of the acts of violence took place on which the appellant based her petition. In the meantime she had again gone to stay with her mother. She says that her husband had telephoned to her and had asked her to go for a drive with him to talk things over. The result of the drive was a quarrel, in the course of which she got out of the car to return by bus. He told her to get back into the car, which she did. Then while he was driving, as she says, at forty miles an hour, he hit her three or four times across the face with the back of his left hand, telling her that he should drive her to the Gap but she was not worth hanging for. He wore a ring. The back of his hand struck her across the nose and mouth and "broke the skin a bit". He drove her home to her mother's house. Later she returned to live with him but on 21st December 1954 left him again. Next day as she was returning to her mother's house from her work she found him waiting for her at the tram stop. He told her to get into the vehicle in which he had driven there and come home with him. She refused and said that if he wished to talk to her he could come to her mother's home for the purpose. This he declined to do. He then hit her with his left fist on the side of the face. It was a heavy blow which broke her upper denture and the membrane inside her mouth, particularly the roof of the mouth. She went to the house of a neighbour, who at the hearing was called as a witness and said that the petitioner had blood upon her face and her mouth was bleeding. The witness telephoned to the police. The respondent was outside the house and the police requested him to keep away from his wife. Next day she laid a charge of assault against him, to which before the magistrates he pleaded guilty, but it does not appear that any order was made. The petitioner has not since returned to her husband.