CUSTODY OF TWINS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 201, 25 August 1945, Page 6

CUSTODY OF TWINS

FATHER'S APPLICATION

SUCCESS AGAIiVST AUNT O.C. HAMILTON, this day. Mr. Justice Fair was engaged at a special sitting of the Supreme Court with a continuation of the habeas corpus application concerning twin girls whom the father proposed to take with him to settle in Western Australia. The father is Arthur Woodcock, labourer, Auckland (Mr. A. L. Tompkins). Dorothy May, spinster, Frankton (Mr. J. F. Strang), is the applicant on behalf of the twins, her nieces, of whom she and four sisters had had custody almost since birth.

The case was partly heard at the May and July sessions, and the judge had asked for a report on conditions in Western Australia. These reports were produced in Court and were in the main favourable. Woodcock said the children would go with him to his sister, who resided with her husband on their own farm near Denmark, 30 miles from Albany. Mr. Tompkins submitted the rights of the father were paramount over those 1 of a maternal aunt. The father had maintained the children while they were in the aunts' care and had visited them when possible After reviewing all the circumstances his Honor made an order in favour of the father.