BUCKMAILING A COUNTESS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 300, 18 December 1911, Page 5

BUCKMAILING A COUNTESS.

COUNSEL THROWS MUD. . LONDON, December 16. A further hearing in the cases against Francis Henry Page, William Henry Glendining and Frederick Marshall, who are charged with blackmailing the Comtesse Harail Demain, was held at Bowstreet. The Comtesse stated in her evidence that Glendining and Page demanded £IOOO, but eventually reduced the amount to £4OO. In his cross-examining, counsel for the defence asked her if Dan O’Connor, whose letters, described as libellous, were secured by the prisoners and used in connection with the alleged blackmail, was a very impecunious man. The complainant replied that O’Connor hod £3500 a year when she first knew him, and he might have part of that now. The magistrate at a later stage in the proceedings intervened, and said that the whole cross-examination was directed towards throwing mud. Counsel angrily protested, and a scene ensued. The magistrate ordered the case to be adjourned. (Received 8.10 a.in.) LONDON, December 16. In her cross-examination the countess declared that Bobbie wished her to marry, and wanted her to settle £SOO a year on him. Page, Glendining and Marshall were charged with having blackmailed the Comtesse Hamil Demain, “a nervous old lady,” for £SOO, by a threat to have her arrested. They were alleged to have used anonymous letters written by the Comtesse ansf a man named Dan O’Connor, whom she had inet in Australia, to the prospective mother-in-law of John Hamilton Dobbic, whom she had also known in Australia, with the idea of preventing Bobbie’s marriage. The Comtesse denied that she had written the anonymous letters herself.