May 25, 2010

June date for marriage hearing

June 29 has been set for the start of a two-day defended hearing for two men charged with allowing a non-registered celebrant to conduct a wedding.

The date was set at a status hearing in the Christchurch District Court today before Judge Emma Smith.

The two men charged did not need to appear at today?s session where defence counsel John Black and crown prosecutor Marty Robinson agreed on the date for the defended hearing before a judge-alone.

Geoffrey Robert Topham Hall, 55, of Pines Beach near Kaiapoi, and Maurice Manawaroa Gray, a minister, of the Christchurch suburb of Cashmere, face two joint charges.

The first is that they ?knowingly and wilfully made a false declaration for the purposes of the Marriage Act 1955, by stating that the marriage of Jeanette Hardey and Philip Leslie Ellis was solemnised in accordance with the Act?.

The second is that they ?falsely pretended to be a marriage celebrant and knowingly and wilfully solemnised the marriage?.

The charges have been laid by the Births, Deaths and Marriages section of the Department of Internal Affairs under the Marriage Act.