Mother Spared Jail in Child-Snatching

SAN DIEGO — A fundamentalist Christian woman who admitted taking her son from his homosexual father was fined $3,000 Friday for civil contempt of court but was spared a jail sentence by a judge who delivered a stern rebuke.

“I’m very upset by the behavior which has led to these proceedings. It was a willful, flagrant violation of a court order,” Superior Court Judge Judith McConnell told Betty Lou Batey. “I cannot condone that.”

Batey, 40, appeared to have been crying as she left the courtroom. She declined to talk to reporters.

Batey had admitted taking her son, Brian, now 13, from his father during a scheduled weekend visit in September, 1982. She and the boy went on the run and hid in Texas and Colorado for 19 months before surrendering to authorities last April in Denver. Batey and her husband, Frank, were divorced in 1975 after four years of marriage.

During a lengthy custody modification hearing last year, Betty Lou Batey said she took the boy because she feared that he would be morally corrupted if he stayed with his father, who resides in Palm Springs with a gay lover.

Brian has been in a foster home since last April and recently told McConnell that he wants to stay there. He earlier had said he wanted to live with his mother.