14 - Sunday, August 15, 1999 -— North Shore News

Determining aCCess rights fc

Stil, Kim's mother,
Nikkita Fox, despite having
occasionally worked as a
prostitute herself in the past,
didn’t want Kim to have
anything to do with her
grandmother for moral rea-
sons,

Does Fox have the right
to deprive her mother access
to her daughrer?

No, said the B.C. provin-
cial court judge. Stevens”
relationship with Kim wasn’t
harmful to the child and, in
fact, was beneficial,

The mother’s objections
“no basis in reason” and
“irrational,” he said.

SEVEN-year-old
Kimberley Ann Fox
loved her maternal
grandmother, Louise
Stevens, who was a
candid, creative and
loving grandmother.
The only problem was
that Stevens was also a
prostitute.

Mind you, Stevens was
very discreet about it. She
lived in a quiet residential
neighbourhood of Victoria,
and her neighbours didn’t
know that she worked for
the properly licensed escort

agency, English Rose, in
separate business quarters
out of her home.

But more importantly,
from the time Kim was
born, Stevens had enjoyed
an excellent relationship had
with her. were

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Burt on appeal recently,
the Supreme Court decided
that a parent does indeed
have the right to make
“moral decisions” about
who can associate with her
child.

“Parents have a right to
bring up their children as
they wish, always providing
that they exercise that right
in a manner that is consis-
tent with law and public
policy,” declared the judge.

“The courts should be
reluctant to interfere with a
custodial parent's decision
and should do so only if sat-
istied that it is in the child's

best interests.”

The judge refused to
allow Stevens to see or visit
Kim.

In Nanaimo, Gail and
George Sneddon were also
denied access to their four-
year-old graidson, Michael
McDonnell.

Michael’s mother, Lynn
Schmidt, was afraid they’d
allow Michael to visit with
their son, Greg Sneddon,
Schmidt's tormer boytriend
and Michael’s father, a drug
addict whom Schmidt had a
restraining, order against.

“If access were to take
place in an atmosphere of

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unhappiness on the part of
the custodial parent, it may
not be in the best interests
of the child to order such
access,” said the judge.

Bur grandparents can
take some comfort from
knowing that the courr
arrived at a different deci-
sion in New Westminster.

There, the court decided
that it was in the best inter-
ests of nwo children, seven-
and five-years-old, to main-
tain ties with their paternal
grandparents with whom
they'd lived, along with
their parents, before their
parents divorced. But a big
factor in this case was that
the mother, Dastinder Kaur
Parmar, didn’t object to the
access, only to the amount
of access the grandparents
wanted.

Although cach situation
is unique, in general, courts
will not deny access to
grandparents because of
imagined or hypothetical
contlicts.

But if there’s reat hostili-
ty berween the custodial
parent and the grandparents,
the court will likely defer to
the decision of the custodial
parent.

This column has been
written with the assistance of
Jeremy Sheppard of the North
Vancouver law firm of
Ratcliff & Company, Suite
500, 221 West Esplanade,
988-5201. .

The column provides
information only and must
not be relied on for legal
advice,

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