Elderly Man Wins Right to See Wife
Charles Barnes, the 92-year-old Glendale man who was barred from seeing his 84-year-old sweetheart, has won the right to visit her at will.
Barnes had eloped with Constance Driscoll and brought her to his home in Glendale. He had been cited for contempt for violating court orders that she not be moved from a residential care facility in Northern California.
While conservators for Driscoll, now in a home in Pasadena, continue to try to have the marriage annulled, they have dropped their opposition to visits by Barnes.
The court-appointed conservators have also dropped their bid to have Barnes found in contempt of court, which could have resulted in a short jail term and fines. “But Mr. Barnes is now able to visit [Driscoll] whenever he wants, in private,” said Stan Mandell, a conservator. “But the visits are still restricted to inside the [residential care] facility where Driscoll is staying. Beyond that, I shouldn’t comment until all this is worked out.”
The contempt citation against Barnes will also be dismissed at a hearing scheduled for next month unless Driscoll’s niece objects, according to court documents. Mandell said he has agreed to dropping the contempt allegations.
“This has been so ridiculous,” said Barnes.
Barnes said that he is not out of the woods yet, but that in the meantime, he will spend as much time as he can with Driscoll.
Lawyers for Barnes and the conservators have agreed to hire a psychiatrist to examine Driscoll and determine whether she was mentally competent at the time of the marriage. The couple have become media celebrities since being forcibly separated. Their story has appeared in the National Enquirer, on British television and in newspapers and television programs across the nation.
But the attention has been no substitute for love, Barnes said Thursday. “I don’t care to be front-page at all,” Barnes said. “I’d prefer to just live my life.”
Driscoll, who is described in court documents as suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, has been in three residential care facilities in the past year. The first home, in Chico, was where Driscoll’s niece had taken her to live. Barnes won a decision from a Los Angeles judge revoking the conservator status of the niece, Kathy Foster, who lives in Chico.
Court-appointed conservators took over the role of administering Driscoll’s affairs, but were taken by surprise when Driscoll disappeared from the Chico home in September. Driscoll turned up less than a week later in another home in Glendale, where Barnes had placed her after secretly marrying her.
The conservators then placed Driscoll in her third group home, this time in Pasadena, and had required Barnes to obtain their permission before visiting Driscoll.
“It was cruel and unreasonable punishment,” Barnes said. “A murderer on death row can see his pastor, but Connie couldn’t. She couldn’t see anyone without permission from the conservators.”