FORMER HUSBAND EVADED

Southland Times, Issue 22904, 1 June 1936, Page 7

FORMER HUSBAND EVADED

Actress Escapes With Child

(United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) (Rec. 6.30 p.m.) «. Quebec, May 29. The four-year-old legal battle between Harry Bannister and his divorced wife, Ann Harding, for the custody of their seven-year-old daughter Jane, took a spectacular turn to-day when Bannister rushed by aeroplane from New York in an attempt to prevent the actress from sailing with the child on the Empress of Australia to-morrow for England. The California Courts allowed each parent six months’ custody of the child, but Bannister claims that his former wife might establish residence in England, where she is going to make a picture, and there would be no legal means of forcing her to return the child. Miss Harding claimed that she had no intention of remaining permanently in England, and said that she would return with the child within the sixmonth period. She checkmated any legal moves Bannister might make to take Jane by secretly sailing late to-day 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 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 was forwarded to England aboard the Empress of Australia. It is expected that the Court hearing will be held at Southampton, which may result in the cancellation of Miss Harding’s motion picture contract in England and her enforced return to America.