I can't answer as to the legal part of the question right now, but I got a slight picture of the situation in The Bahamas when I was researching a very simple question.
There is a ton of publicity about King Eric Gibson and his musical talents, entrepreneural efforts on behalf of The Bahamas, sailing and boating expertise and golf pursuits.
He was given a Member of the Order of the British Empire (Civil Division) award by the Queen, which is quite an honor. In all the biographies about him and all the reams of info put out there, not once do they ever enumerate his children.
We've seen in the stories about Gerlene that she has raised 7 children - in fact, King Eric said "her children." We know, or assume, that he and Gerlene are divorced and that Brigitte Neven is his long-time "companion" (some stories call her his "common-law wife").
But never in these articles, even ones where they start off touting him as a respected "father, teacher, musician" and so forth, starting with "father," do they ever say "his cihldren David Shane Gibson, Immigration Minister" and so on, listing all the children.
The more I did some reading, in fact, finding that another well known old-time musician, "Duke Errol" Strachan, is KEG's first cousin - I found that all the other old-timers identify their children in articles and bios. I went thru dozens of such articles.
I was able to ascertain that King Eric's parents were named Robert and Drucilla, assuming Gibson was their last name. He was born in Acklins, a far "family island" of The Bahamas. It was a poor area. The father lead the church choir at their Baptist church and the mother played the organ.
After that, there is nothing more except all about his career and nothing about marriage and children. I gleaned a few more relatives by reading all the regatta results - John Gibson is his brother. Sheldon and Delworth (also spelled Shelton and Delsworth in clippings) are two more sons, brothers of Shane. Yvonne Gibson is a daughter - sister of Shane.
That's all I know. I've checked out other Gibsons who are musicians or sailors, but can't shed any light on any family relationship. In one article, Shane was giving a speech and thanked King Eric Gibson for something - never acknowledging they were father/son or calling him "Dad".
Then, there are tons of stories about these same old-timers where none of the children have the fathers' names and none of the mothers ever married the fathers. Tons of those. Lots of young boys taken in from far islands to live with some other family and never going back.
It seems to be a touchy subject, from what I can gather. So, I'm not sure we would ever know for sure who belongs to whom - and I'm sure their paternity laws have to give a lot of leeway for fathers who don't want to be fathers and families who do, but aren't "legal."
In some ways, HKS is fitting right in.
Wow...that is very interesting and certainly shines a new light on how paternity is viewed in the Bahamas; and why there doesn't seem to be the outrage at the potential injustice of keeping a baby from its biological father, so obvious to us as Americans.
Mr. D. Shane Gibson was born in Nassau on September 7, 1961. He is the fifth child of Gerlene Gibson of Crooked Island and Eric "King Eric" Gibson of Acklins. He and his four (4) brothers and five (5) sisters grew up in Mount Pleasant Avenue off Kemp Road, they then moved to Marathon Estates where David Shane was at the age of ten (10).