The descendent of an Irish earl was in prison yesterday after a dispute with her brother and sister over the rights to property from the family mansion in Co Down.
Ms Marion Scarlett Needham Russell (33), started a 14-day period of imprisonment in Maghaberry Prison, Co Antrim, after being held in contempt of court for refusing to obey a Northern Ireland High Court order to return antiques worth £250,000 to her family.
The 28 items came from the family home near Kilkeel, Co Down.
The PSNI confirmed yesterday that Ms Russell had gone to Kilkeel police station in Co Down with her solicitor, by arrangement, at lunchtime to be arrested.
From there, Ms Russell, a relative of former Tory MP and long-serving Northern Ireland minister, Mr Richard Needham, was taken to the prison outside Lisburn.
Although she has been jailed for 14 days she is due to go before the High Court again next week.
The application to have her committed to prison was made by lawyers acting for her sister, Ms Debonair Norah Needham Horsman, of Banbridge, Co Down, and her brother, Mr Philip James Anley, of Mourne Park, Kilkeel.
The court action was the culmination of a 10-year family battle over the future of the Mourne Park House estate near Kilkeel, and whether it should be kept private or opened to the public.
The three siblings each own a third of the property and Ms Needham said her father, who died of cancer at the age of 48, 10 years ago, had wanted her to develop it and make it self-supporting. - (PA)