CONTEMPT OF COURT

Evening Star, Issue 22248, 28 January 1936, Page 9

CONTEMPT OF COURT

MRS EDOLS DISCHARGED

•• FURTHER DETENTION FUTILE"

Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright

SYDNEY, January 27. Mr Justice Lukin, in the Bankruptcy Court, ordered the discharge of Mrs , Aimee Belle Edols after serving nearly four years in gaol for contempt of court, fraud, and irregularities under the Bankruptcy Act. Mrs Edol’s case created considerable public interest in 1933, when she was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for misrepresentation and fraud. Her examination in bankruptcy disclosed that she had spent large sums on betting. extravagant living, and entertaining. At a subsequent examination she declared she had assets of £45,000 in Melbourne, but she resolutely declined to give any information about it, whereupon she received a further sentence of two years for contempt of court. Mr Justice Lukin, in ordering her discharge to-day, paid that, although' Mrs Edols had not purged her contempt, he was of the opinion that her further detention would be futile. It was quite possible that a considerable portion of the £50,000 not accounted for had found its way into hands as unscrupulous as her own, and therefore could not now be traced or recovered.