GUILTY OF FRAUD

Evening Star, Issue 19351, 10 September 1926, Page 5

GUILTY OF FRAUD

MBS SEVAN CONVICTED SENTENCED TO IMPRISONMENT. Press Association —By Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, September 9. (Received September 10, at 9.30 a.m.) Mrs Bovan was found guilty, and was sentenced to sis months’ imprisonment. [Mrs Bevan was arrested in Christchurch and sent to England under police escort. Tho insurance company had paid over £2,000 to her relatives on tho assumption that sho was dead. It was stated that she left her house at Ilfracombe, Devon, which was about 200yds from the beach, for tho purpose of rubbing her side with seaweed as a remedy for heart attacks. Her clothes were found in a cavo at midday. They were folded in a neat bundle, and appeared not to have been worn. A mackintosh was picked up on another part of tho beach some weeks later. Mrs Bevan was described as being very religious-minded. In the Probate Court the Prudential Assurance Company applied for a revocation of letters of administration granted to Mrs Sevan's solicitor in 1922. Counsel alleged that the sccrotarv of tho Girls’ Friendly Society at Exeter, where a girl, who said her name was Finch, arrived on the day Mrs Bevan was supposed to have, been drowned, identified this girl frpm a photograph as Mrs Bevan. The girl applied for a passport to South Africa. The judge ordered tho application to stand over. He expressed the opinion that tho grave questions which wore involved would be sot at rest when tho presumed deceased arrived _ irom New Zealand in custody to await her trial. This is only the second case of its kind in legal history.]