KYNETON BABY TANGLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27040, 26 March 1949, Page 7

KYNETON BABY TANGLE

APPEAL AGAINST DECISION UPHELD

CASE IN MELBOURNE Rec. 10 p.m. MELBOURNE, Mar. 25. The State Full Court unanimously upheld the appeal in the Kyneton baby case where Mr and Mrs Noel Jenkins, of Kyneton, appealed against the decision of Mr Justice Barry that two children, known as Nola Jenkins and Johanne Lee Morrison had been mixed up at the Kyneton hospital where they were born within a few minutes of each other on June 22, 1945, and given to the wrong parents, and that Nola be returned to Mr and Mrs W. Morrison. Nola will now stay with the Jenkins.

The Chief Justice, Sir Edmund Herring, said: “It is not for the welfare of either child that Nola be removed from the family circle where she is now being happily brought up until it has been established without doubt that she is in the wrong family circle. In general, it is desirable that the child be brought up by her parents.” But, he said, he could imagine nothing more tragic than removing the child from one to another family circle as the result of proceedings and then later proceedings deciding that she really belonged back in the first family circle. It would be different if there was no possible doubt but no such thing can be said about this case.”