John Joseph Lion (Plaintiff) Joan Lorna Lion (Defendant)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE DIPLOCK |
| Judgment Date | 20 December 1966 |
| Neutral Citation | [1966] EWCA Civ J1220-4 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Docket Number | 1966. L. No. 2428 |
| Date | 20 December 1966 |
[1966] EWCA Civ J1220-4
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
Civil Division
Appeal from Order of Pennycuick J. dated 1st December, 1966.
Revised
Lord Justice Willmer,
Load Justice Harman and
Lord Justice Diplock
In the Matter of John James Lion (an Infant)
In the Matter of The Guardianship of Infants
Acts, 1886 and 1925
Mr GEOFFREY D. LOVEGROVE (instructed by Messrs Matthew Trackman, Lifton & Spry, Agents for Messrs Biddle, Mason & Co., Solinull) appeared on behalf of the Appellant (Defendant).
Mr C.W.G. ROSS-MUNRO (Instructed by Messrs Nicholson, Graham & Jones) appeared on behalf of the Respondent (Plaintiff).
LORD JUSTICE WILLKER: We need not trouble you, Mr Ross-Munro. I have asked Lord Justine Harman to deliver the first judgment.
LORD JUSTICE HARMAN: This is an appeal from Mr Justice Pennycuick in an application made by a father under the Guardianship of infants Act and the amending Act of 1925 whereby he applied under section 5 of the Guardianship of Infants Act of 1886 to have the custody of the child awarded to him. The judge below agreed with that proposal in face of the mother's opposition and a cross-summons by her whereby she asked that the custody should be awarded to her.
The case was really a stright forward one of a choice between one alternative and another. The marriage of the parents was in April, 1956, the father then having three children by a former wife, who had recently died, the mother having two children rather older by a former husband whom she had divorced, and as he acknowledges she looked after his motherless children in an admirable fashion, for which he expressed his gratitude. He had a child by her in August 1959, and that is the child who is the subject of this application. So there were his children, her children, and their child, and they all by that time, I think, lived more or less together.
The husband is a business man, and a very successful one. After marriage they lived, among other places, at Camberley, and until his retirement in 1963 he bad, of course, to attend to his business affairs in England. But he had always had it in mind that when he retired, he would like to no to the South of France and live his retirement out there. He is by no means old, being under sixty years old, I think, now. There were, I think, two chief reasons for that, (1) that he suffered very much in the winter from catarrh, and he found that a drier and sunnier climate in the South of France to be beneficial, as many people have done; (2) he thought that there would be a great monetary saving possibly to be made for a man who will go to France and transfer his assets to that country in the form of a comparative freedom from estate duty, from capital gains tax at present, and so forth.
In 1964 the husband bought a slot of land at Le Rayol near St. Tropez, and made no secret of the fact that he intended to build himself a house there, and retire to it as soon as possible. The mother was not very happy at that prospect. She in a provincial English lady with no knowledge of French. She had been to the South of France on holiday,...
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