prolonged custody battle -- will this week be decided in the Supreme Court.

And the case has already begun to draw media attention in Canada with the country's largest daily newspaper, the Toronto Star, yesterday profiling efforts by the mother, Dr. Marguerite Kopaniak, to have her child returned from Bermuda where she currently lives with her father, Dr. Peter McLellan.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's current affairs programme, Newsmagazine, is also considering sending a camera crew to the Island to cover the case, which will be held in chambers on Thursday.

The custody battle spilled over into Bermuda last October when Dr. McLellan, who had been granted custody of the child by Ontario Court Judge Madam Justice Janet Wilson last August, married his Bermudian attorney and quietly moved to the Island.

Within four days of arriving here, court records indicate, he had obtained an ex parte child custody order from Puisne Judge Vincent Meerabux. The move drew immediate reaction in Ontario and Dr. McLellan has since been found in contempt of court; he faces arrest should he ever return to Canada.

Under the terms of the original order, Dr. McLellan had been granted custody on an undertaking he would remain in the Toronto area, participate in counselling by a court-appointed psychologist, and foster an ongoing relationship between the child and her mother.

Madam Justice Wilson -- in her August ruling -- also served notice the Ontario court "remained seized'' of the matter and terms of access were to be reviewed at a later date.

"The father's conduct has deprived the child of a relationship with the mother,'' wrote Madam Justice Wilson in a February ruling which reversed her first custody order and granted custody to the mother.

"The respondent's (Dr. McLellan's) conduct since the conclusion of the trial, including his clandestine departure from the jurisdiction with the child... is reprehensible,'' she said.

Further clouding the issue is the fact Bermuda has not signed on to the Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, otherwise known as the Hague convention on child kidnapping. Forty-three countries, including the UK, US, Canada, and most western European states, have signed on.

The convention provides the international legal framework whereby children under 16 years -- who have been taken by a parent to another jurisdiction -- can be apprehended and returned.

It further stipulates that if the country in which the child habitually resides has made a custody order in favour of one parent, that order will be recognised and enforced by all other assigned jurisdictions. All the principles involved in this case are Canadian citizens.

The case meanwhile has also drawn the attention of the Canadian government, with a petition on behalf of the mother being recently tabled in the House of Commons in Ottawa.

Canadian consular officials have since met with Bermuda Government representatives in New York and advised them "Canada would welcome having Bermuda treat the dispute in light of the terms of the (Hague) convention'', the Toronto Star reported.