The hospitality of adulterous men

One judge was dumbfounded by how welcoming some men were towards private detectives

While working at the West Riding Assizes in Leeds in 1936, Justice Du Parcq was rather fed up with the divorce petitions that came before him. He had already dismissed one case brought by Mary Haywood of Sheffield, where she alleged that her husband Walter had committed adultery, because he could not believe that 40-year-old Walter could have wanted to have sex with a 60 year old woman. Now, he had moved onto another divorce petition, and this one was troubling him as well.

Why did so many adulterous individuals let private detectives into their bedrooms? (image from the New York Public Library digital collection - public domain)

Doris Cliff of Barnsley had petitioned for a divorce from her fishmonger husband Joseph, on the grounds of his adultery with Lilian Carr at Poole in Dorset - the evidence for this being obtained by a private detective she (or, more likely, her solicitors) had commissioned.

In court, the judge heard evidence from the private detective (who, frustratingly for me, remains anonymous in the accompanying press report), where the latter described visiting a bedroom in Poole. Justice Du Parcq had come across similar cases before, but was still shocked by one aspect of it:

"It is extraordinary how hospitable some respondents and co-respondents seem to be towards private detectives. Most people would a little resent it if a strange man walked into a bedroom where a woman was in bed."

The judge made clear that he believed the detective's evidence; it was simply that he wondered why more private detectives, on entering a stranger's bedroom, were not thumped. He now questioned the detective on the matter further:

"Was the man pleased to see you?" he asked. The detective answered, "He was quite friendly."

"Oh yes," Du Parcq commented, "Quite friendly - delighted to see you, because of the divorce. He didn't offer you any refreshment, did he?"

The court burst into laughter, but it's clear that the work of the private detective in shadowing individuals and even venturing into their bedrooms was something that this judge could simply not understand.