h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

For what purpose?

Rank? Invitations to all the *good* parties? What do I know?

Slyly avoided the suspiciously green veldt area in the forest clearing.

*shoulder's the Blunderbuss*

Well, yes, it can't be anything *too* obvious.

a spouse gets the estate if there is no will and the kids can go whistle in the event of mummys demise

Just to restate -

Col. Barker, Geoffrey Norton and John Hill where all involved in two separate but related deceptions.

One of them (which?) was charged and tried for false entry on a marriage certificate.

The real question is why?

defrauding people out of their inheritance

defauding the crown out of the estates of those who died intestate/ without an heir

'Defrauding spinsters and widows' - -5

The trap that Mal so neatly avoided.

Surely that would come under fraud or some other form of obtaining money by deception, Taff?

No this crime in and of itself was the mere fact of the false entry in the marriage register. But why would somebody falsify a marriage certificate?

to make a later marrige invalid on the grounds of bigamy

Gah! - I can't believe I didn't have Bigamy down.


No. *sulk*

to make a later marrige invalid

Nope.

The reason they were charged with invalidating..etc is because they were *caught* - it was not an integral part of their deception (like setting up a later invalid marriage) but was something they did along the way, as it were and for which they were found out for.

It's also significant that it is the only thing they were charged with.

And on that enigmatic point, I am bedward bound...

Is it possible that the "gentlemen" in question were one and the same person ie did one person use false names to marry more than one person?

Ah the first of my fences has fallen.

Feisor +3

Yes Barker, Gerald, and Ian were all one and the same.

The 1923-1960, I thought would be a clue, that is the period of this person's life in which they were an impostor.

but why would this result in the seemingly mild rebuke (though nonetheless criminal) charge of falsifying a marriage certificate?

As it happens the person in question was married twice but the intent seems not to be anything polyamorous

It's 1925, remember, social mores are still quite conservative.

Right I'm taking advantage of the the predicted fine weather and having a garden-day today; I've got a couple of odd-jobs need doing and some planintg I want to get done before August get's too far advanced.

So I'll be popping in and checking progress here periodically.

Leaves any guesses and suggestions as normal; and I'll reply en masse when I'm indoors.

Perhaps the "marriages" were to conceal homosexuality, and when they got caught the law gave them a slap on the wrist and a new identity.

As far as can be discerned from this distance the motivation was not sexual.

Is that meant to say that unless the official reports are fabrications, I am wrong?