PRIVY COUNCIL DEFIED

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 December 1926, Page 3

PRIVY COUNCIL DEFIED

— — GIRL WITHHELD FROM MOTHER OTTAWA, October 1. Four courts ruled that Bernard Stevenson, a Montreal octogenarian, should yield up the custody of his 12-year-old daughter to her mother. The last court to do so was the Privy Council. Stevenson, however, defies even the Privy Council, and refuses to hand over the girl. . The girl’s mother, Dame Flora Florant, agreed, nearly 12 years ago. that her daughter should be taken care of by Stevenson. Nine years later, she tried to carry off the child by force. She claimed that she wanted to bring up her daughter as a Roman Catohilc, but it was alleged that the object of her intervention was to place the child in a convent. Legal proceedings followed, and Stevenson was ordered to surrender the child. Two appeals to higher courts were dismissed, and an appeal to the Privy Council in July also failed. Mr Stevenson, who flatly refused to obey the order against him, was ordered to appear to show cause why he should not be sentenced to a year’s imprisonment for contemp tof court. “Do you refuse?” asked Justice Brunean. “Certainly,” replied Mr Stevenson. “I will go to the scaffold rather than give her up.”