By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

A MAN who claims he did not know his wife had obtained a divorce order 15 years ago has failed to get it overturned, despite evidence that they continued living together, attended marriage counselling and twice increased the mortgage on their home.

Justice Hope Strachan refused to cancel the divorce order, known as a decree nisi, which the wife obtained on May 19, 2010, after accusing her husband of cruelty.

However, the wife never took the final step needed to legally end the marriage.

In a ruling dated October 16, Justice Strachan gave the wife, identified as N.B., 14 days to apply to finalise the divorce. If she does, a separate divorce petition filed by her husband, W.B., last year will be dismissed.

If she fails to act, her 2010 petition will be dismissed because of unreasonable delay, allowing her husband to proceed with his own case.

The judge also gave the wife 21 days to file any applications concerning the couple’s property and finances. Both sides must pay their own legal costs.

The couple had been married for 24 years and had three children when the wife obtained the original order.

The case went ahead without opposition because the husband did not respond to the divorce petition.

Court records included a sworn statement from retired police officer Rudolph Sweeting, who said he personally served the husband with the divorce papers on February 26, 2010.

Mr Sweeting said the man identified himself by the husband's name and resembled a photograph attached to his statement.

Justice Michael Barnett, as he then was, granted the provisional divorce on the grounds of cruelty, leaving property and other outstanding matters to be settled later.

The wife took no further action.

On April 24, 2025, the husband filed his own divorce petition. When the papers were served on his wife the following month, the earlier proceedings came to light.

The husband insisted he had never received the 2010 divorce papers and knew nothing about the court order.

He said the couple continued living together between 2010 and 2024, raised their children, travelled, celebrated family occasions, attended marriage counselling and jointly paid for repairs to their home.

He also produced a report from their marriage counsellor confirming that divorce was never discussed during their sessions. His wife did not dispute the report.

The husband argued that their conduct was inconsistent with him knowing his wife had already obtained a divorce order.

He asked the court to cancel the order, arguing that important facts had not been disclosed, and to dismiss his wife's petition because of the lengthy delay.

The wife acknowledged that they continued living under the same roof and participated in some family activities, but insisted they lived separate lives and never reconciled.

She maintained that the husband's denial, made 15 years after the papers were served, was not enough to disprove the police officer's sworn account.

She blamed financial difficulties for her failure to complete the divorce and argued that the outstanding property and financial matters could still be settled through the original case.

Starting another divorce case, she argued, would waste time and money.

Justice Strachan accepted the police officer's evidence that the husband had been served.

She described the husband's account as a "bare denial", pointing out that he had not challenged the date, time or location of the alleged service or whether he was the person shown in the photograph.

The judge also rejected his argument that important facts had been withheld from the court in 2010, finding that the events he relied on happened after the divorce order was granted.

She found no evidence that the couple had worked together to mislead the court.

However, Justice Strachan raised several concerns about the wife's conduct after obtaining the order.

She questioned why the couple continued making major financial commitments together, including twice increasing the mortgage on their home.

The judge said a mortgage requires a long-term commitment and that entering such an arrangement with a spouse was "antithetical to having sued the other party for a divorce".

She also questioned why the wife attended marriage counselling without telling the counsellor that she had already obtained a divorce order.

Justice Strachan said the decision to attend counselling undermined the wife's earlier sworn position that there was no possibility of reconciliation.

The couple's joint participation in counselling, she said, suggested they both intended to save the marriage.

The judge also found that the wife had failed to serve the divorce order on her husband, as required by court rules.

She rejected the wife's explanation that financial hardship prevented her from completing the divorce, saying there was no convincing evidence to support it.

Justice Strachan pointed out that the wife had admitted purchasing vehicles, building a wall, installing railings and renovating the matrimonial home during the intervening years.

The wife also acknowledged going to dinner with her husband, although their children were present.

At one point, the judge said the evidence suggested "that the parties did in fact reconcile".

However, she ultimately found there was insufficient evidence to conclude that they had reconciled, citing their conflicting accounts and the lack of a clear timeline of their activities after 2010.

Justice Strachan found that the wife had allowed the case to remain unfinished for 15 to 16 years "without a credible excuse".

She also said the husband could not be blamed for failing to challenge an order he did not know existed, particularly since he acted to resolve the matter after learning about it.

Despite these findings, the judge refused to cancel the original order.

She said forcing the parties to start the divorce process again would create unnecessary expense and delay when both accepted that their marriage had ended.

The husband's own divorce petition showed that he also believed the marriage had broken down, and none of the couple's children was still a minor.

"There seems to be little utility in setting aside the 2010 decree and causing the present petition to be prosecuted, to end the marriage," Justice Strachan said.

She also said she could not revisit Justice Barnett's original finding that the wife had proved cruelty.

The judge said there were no Bahamian court decisions directly addressing whether a provisional divorce order could be reversed and the petition dismissed at such a late stage.

Relying on English case law, she concluded that the Matrimonial Causes Act gave the court that power where the circumstances justified it, but that a lengthy delay did not automatically require dismissal.

Elsworth Johnson represented the husband. Maria Zancolla-Willie represented the wife.