MR. JOSEPH EDWARD TATE (ALIAS WILLIAMS)LLANBEBLIG, CAERNARFON.
CHARGE OF BIGAMY. A CARNARVON MAN'S RECORD.
At the Bangor Police Court on Tuesday, before Mr T. Lewis and other magistrate, Joseph Edward Tate, Carnarvon (alias Williams), was, charged by the police, for whom Mr S. R. Dew appeared, with forging and uttering a certificate of marriage, and also with bigamy. Mr T. J. Roberts defended.With regard to the first charge, Mr Dew said that, while he was a married the prisoner became acquainted with a Mrs L. C. Edwards, a young married woman of Llanfairfechan. She had obtained a separation order from her husband, who had disappeared, while she was in service at Carnarvon, and the prisoner persuaded her to go with him.
He took her to various places, and while at Nottingham she went through what she considered was a marriage ceremony with Tate. Later, when a question, arose as to the reality of the marriage, Tate, produced the certificate, which it was alleged, was a forged certificate. As to the charge of bigamy, Tate, who was then a soldier, living at 62, Mountain Street, Carnarvon, was married at the Registrar's Office at Carnarvon on the 16th May, 1894, to a young woman from Llanberis. She left him after a short period, but on the 2nd January, 1901, Tate, got married to another young woman from Liverpool, though he could easily have ascertained from his first wife's relations, whom he knew well, whether she was alive or dead.
As a matter of fact she was alive and in court that day. The marriage was obviously a bigamous one, as seven years had not elapsed. The case as to the first charge at this stage was adjourned for the production of letters, written by the woman to her mother during the time of her cohabitation with Tate, in Sheffield.
Mr Dew next opened the charge of bigamy, putting into the box one of the bridesmaids at Tate's first marriage and the young woman with whom he contracted his second marriage in January, 1901, at Liverpool, the ,certificate of which was produced. Other evidence having been given, Tate was remanded on the second charge; also, bail being fixed at £30.