LIFE OF CRIME.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 180, 2 August 1938, Page 7

LIFE OF CRIME.

GAOL FOR "COUNTESS."

THEFTS AND FRAUDS.

ADMISSION OF OFFENCES. (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON, July 16. Sentence of six months' imprisonment was peeeed at Westminster, London, on a woman who, according to police evidence, was known as Countess de la Feld. She faced the magistrate as Mrs. Doreen Roach-Jackson, aged 33, oi Denbigh Street, Pimlico, London.

Pleading guilty to five charges of! stealing books and obtaining goods by , false pretences, she asked for 50 other icaeee to be taken into consideration.

Detective-Sergeant O'Sullivan 6aid that last September she was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for obtaining money by false pretences.

She was a native of Bristol and attended Clifton High School. In 1933 she entered a convent, but remained! only four months. She had started two publishing businesses.

In June last year ehe married a man described as De la Feld, and known as ■a count of the Holy Roman Empire.

S*ince then she had been living on the proceeds of crime, and had posed as a parson's wife,- a baroness and countess. She was wanted in Ireland on an allegation of uttering worthless cheques. Mr. Geoffrey Gueh eaid Mrs. RoachJackson had earned considerable royalties from a book, but this sum had decreased. She eaid she committed the offences because she was embarrassed financially. She was willing to make restitution.