A NERVOUS COUNTESS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3396, 11 December 1911, Page 5

A NERVOUS COUNTESS.

ALLEGATIONS OF BLACKMAIL-

SOME ALLEGED LIBELLOUS

LE'ITKRS

f UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION —COPYRIGHT] LONDON. Dec. 8. At the Bow Street Court the case was again called on of Francis Henry Page, William Henry Glendining and Frederick Marshall, ex-solicitor, charged' with blackmailing the Countess Hamil Demanin. [lt was stated in previous evidence that £SOO was obtained under a threat that letters would be published to her annoyance, written by Dan O’Connor, late of Sydney, and one Dobbie. It was asserted in Court that the letters were not in the least improper, but Countess Demanin was a nervous old lady.] The prosecuting counsel stated that the Countess Demanin met John Hamilton Dobbie in Australia and New Zealand in 1899. She also knew Dan O’Connor in Australia. Dobbie in 1908 was engaged to be married. O’Connor and the Countess wrote an anonymous letter, which counsel described as libellous, to Dobbie’s prospective mother-in-law,' hoping to prevent the marriage. The prisoners secured the letters, and used them as a basis for blackmailing. The prisoners interviewed O’Connor and sought to induce him to incriminate the Countess, who was afterwards taken to the prisoners’ office, and terrified into signing four hills of exchange for £IOO each under threat of O’Connor and her being arrested. The prosecution stated that Dobbie was now in Australia. The Countess is reputed to be worth £12,000 a year. The Countess denied that she wrote the anonymous letters herself. She did not know that O’Connor was writing thorn until afterwards. The case ivas adjourned.