A SHERIFF has ruled that a hippie mother can stay in her makeshift
home near her baby's grave beside a Perthshire burn -- but her
common-law husband must go.
In a written judgment, Sheriff Andrew Levine ruled that Ms Gillian
Graves, 36, had been given permission to remain on land at Auchtubh,
Balquhidder, by smallholder Albert Sauer, but her partner, Mr Rodney
''Magi'' McGlynn, 39, had not.
Yesterday, Ms Graves, one of the last remaining members of a hippie
encampment which upset planning authorities and led to a series of court
appearances, said she was devastated. ''How can they not evict me -- and
yet evict my husband? It seems stupid.''
Mr McGlynn, father of the dead baby girl and the couple's six-year-old
son Michael, said he would appeal to the High Court and vowed not to
leave the site alive.
''I buried my child here with my own hands,'' he said. ''The locals
are glad we are here and Mr Sauer has never told me he didn't want me
here.
''It's a modern-day Highland Clearance but I will die here. I'm not
beaten and I'm no feart. I quite believe they will try to imprison me
and split Gill and I up that way if they can.
''They split up families in the Clearances by taking the men away and
they're trying to do it again. But the man is staying with his family
this time. They'll have to kill me before I leave, as they've killed
many Scots before.''
At a civil hearing last month, Mr Sauer's lawyer asked Sheriff Court
at Stirling for decrees evicting both remaining adult members of the
controversial camp, which had led to Mr Sauer's own multiple court
appearances on charges of breaking planning law.
Giving judgment, Sheriff Levine said he accepted Mr McGlynn's
sincerity in seeking to remain ''home -- where the heart is'' but found
that he had no right or title.
Ms Graves on the other hand could not be ejected because Mr Sauer had
made it clear he did not wish her to go. In evidence, Mr Sauer had said
he was only bringing the action because ''unless he did so he could be
held to be in contempt of some authority or other''.
Mr Sauer, 47, was fined #250 at the Sheriff Court in December for
permitting the hippie camp against planning laws. He said he was puzzled
by the judgment.
''Justice has two faces. I was held to be a criminal for letting them
stay there -- now by the next judgment I'm not allowed to throw one of
them out,'' he said.
Mr McGlynn, self-styled craftsman and organic gardener, claimed he was
being persecuted ''for letting people ken there's a world outside the
concrete ghetto and Tesco's''.
He pleaded to be left alone. ''I want to get on with my work and
family, planting my trees, and growing my garden in peace,'' he said.
He asked: ''If home is where the heart is, how can they tear me and
Gill apart. Sheriffs are supposed to be men of wisdom -- but where is
the wisdom in splitting up a family?''
At the May hearing, Ms Graves begged to be allowed to remain and told
Sheriff Levine that her daughter Verily, who died at birth last
September, was buried beside their ''bender'' home.
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