AS MAN AND WIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 305, 26 December 1928, Page 3

AS MAN AND WIFE.

MARRIED MAN AND GIRL OF 12.

AMAZING ABDUCTION STORY.

A VICTORIAN CHARGE

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, December 21

In few cases of the many heard on charges of abduction has there been such amazing evidence adduced as was the case this week in Melbourne, where Albert Peardon, a married man, who was arrested in Sydney, was committed for trial. He was charged with having taken Violet May Barry, a girl under the age of 12 years, out of the possession of, and against the wish of the guardian or person having control of her.

An officer of the Children's * Welfare Department of Victoria, produced a birth certificate showing that the girl was born in the Women's Hospital, Melbourne, on June 4, 1911, and was made a ward of the State on July 26, 1921. She was placed in the care of Airs. Peardon, wife of the accused, who then lived at Woodend. Mrs. Peardon subsequently moved to Preston, and took the girl with her, the girl still being a ward of the State of Victoria. Most sensational evidence was given by Violet May Barry, who said her age at present was 17J years. In July, 1923, she said, Peardon and she agreed that they would leave the Peardon home. "I was as much to blame as he was," she added.

Peardon called at the school for her and took her away with hitti in his sulky. They travelled 26 miles that day to a town, the name of which she could not remember, and although she was then only 12 years of age, they lived together as man and wife under the name of Mr. and Mrs. Richardson. They subsequently reached Holbrook, New South Wales, where Peardon sold the horse and sulky, and later took her, by easy stages, to Sydney.

He worked there for a time, and later they went on to Mackay, in Queensland. She told the Court that she was the mother of two children, one being four years old and the other just 20 months. Detective Lacey, who made the arrest in New South Wales, said that Peardon admitted to him that he was the father of the children, and added that he intended to come back to Melbourne and "give myself up to be right in the eyes of God." Peardon, after being warned that he need not make a statement in Court, said that he preferred not to do so. He pointed out, however, that although he was known by the name of Peardon, he understood that he, too, was a ward of the State, and that his correct name was Thomas Francis Albert Trevelyon.

The girl had been most unhappy with his wife, who had told her that she had been to the Neglected Children's Department, and had found out that she was over 16 years of age, and not 12, as was stated at the time to be the case. His wife had added, "You are a woman, not a girl." His wife had threatened to cut the girl to pieces.

"I would not have taken her away if I had known that she was not over 16," he said.