HER OWN CHILD

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 128, 1 June 1936, Page 9

HER OWN CHILD

KIDNAPPING CHARGE WARRANT FOR ACTRESS'S ARREST QUEBEC, May 29. A four-year legal battle _ between Harry Bannister and his divorced wife, Ann Harding, for custody of their seven-year-old daughter Jane took a spectacular turn when Bannister rushed by aeroplane from New York in an attempt to prevent the actress sailing with the child on the Empress of Australia tomorrow for England.

Californian Courts allowed each parent six months' custody, but Bannister claims that his former wife might establish residence in England, where she is going to make a picture, and where there will be no legal means to force her to return the child.

Miss Harding claimed that she had no intention of remaining permanently in England, and said she would return with the child within the six months' period. She checkmated any legal moves Bannister might take here by secretly sailing late today by the Duchess of Atholl. For a time Bannister refused- to believe that Miss Harding had actually evaded him by sailing by the Duchess of Atholl. and insisted on personally searching the Empress of Australia from stem to stern. When he was finally convinced that his daughter had gone he swore to a formal charge of kidnapping against his former wife and a warrant for her arrest was issued which will be forwarded to England aboard the Empress of Australia. It is expected that the Court hearing will be held at Southampton, which may or may not result in the cancellation of Miss Harding's motion-picture contract in England and her enforced return to America.