MOTHER v. AUNT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 450, 11 February 1909, Page 3

MOTHER v. AUNT.

A NEW ZEALAND EPISODE IN LONDON.

Strange scenes (writes a London correspondent) marked the final phase in the struggle of a mother to regain possession of her daughter from the custody of the child’s aunts. The child was born in London nine years ago, and three weeks afterwards the parents, Mr and Mrs Burley, handed it over to the custody of its grandparents, Mr Burley’s father and mother, and emigrated to New Zealand.

Soon afterwards the grandparents died, and the child passed into the custody of Mr Burley’s sisters, the Misses Burley, of Gibbon street, Plymouth, with whom she has lived ever since. Some months ago Mrs Burley came to England to take her daughter out to New Zealand, but the aunts, being greatly attached to the child, barricaded the door against the mother. Watching her opportunity, the mother, two months ago, seized the child in the street and drove off with it in a cab to the station, intending to catch the first train to L,ondon. But the aunts followed with some sympathisers, and, arriving before the train left, forcibly retook the child and carried it off in triumph. The fight for the child was then transferred to the Eaw Courts. The mother applied for a writ of habeas corpus, which was granted, and an order made for the aunts to deliver the child up by noon on Friday. The mother, with her solicitor and a detective, drove up in the morning to the house in Gibbon-street. She found her daughter in bed, and one of the aunts clung to her, weeping passionately. Meanwhile, a none too friendly crowd had gathered outside.

It was deemed prudent to defer the matter and a further postponement was necessary in the afternoon. Finally, reinforced by a doctor and a nurse, the mother bore the child oil to her hotel.