SENT BACK TO PRISON

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 257, 13 October 1932, Page 5

SENT BACK TO PRISON

CONTEMPT OF COURT THE OBSTINATE MRS EDOLS. ALLEGED ASSETS OF £45,000. Mrs Aimee Belie Edols, a Sydney society woman, who had just served a leiin of six months’ imprisonment at Long Bay prison for contempt of Court, again appeared before Mr Justice Lukin in the Federal Bankruptcy Court in Sydney on September 30. She was questioned at length by His Honour regarding her alleged assets of £45,000 and the two men to whom she stated she had handed the money for investment. She was also interrogated as to what she had done with about £7OO which she received from Mrs Styles, a Sydney widow. Mrs Edols, replying to the Judge, admitted that she had got £3OOO from a planter named Reg. McConnell, and that the cheques which she gave hnn in payment were uot met. She had given £3OOO to two tneu in Melbourne to invest. In all she bad given those two men £38,000. The men had informed her that McConnell’s investment returned a profit of £7OOO. Witness further stated that she had received back none of the money. The men had not communicated with her since she had been m gaol, but she still regarded them as honourable men. Asked the names of the men, Mrs Edols declined to tell, but added that she would give the information in October. It was a question of honour. Referring to the £9OO lent to Mrs Edols by Mrs Styles, His Honour said that only £2OO had been accounted for. It might appear to some people that she had stolen the money from Mrs Styles. Mrs Edols: Mrs Styles is not telling the truth. Witness also refused to give details of her alleged assets of £45,000. “LIKE A NAUGHTY GIRL.” After further questions, Mr Justice Lukin said he considered Mrs Edols had been acting like a naughty girl who had stolen her mate’s toy and would not give it up or say where it was. Counsel for Mrs Edols submitted that his client should not be sent back to gaol. If she had been convicted of having actually stolen the money she would not have been sentenced to more than six months. His Honour said that in his opinion the sentence would have been longer. He then sentenced Mrs Edols to six months’ imprisonment, with light labour. Counsel said that he had an undertaking from Mrs Edols that she would answer all questions if the case was adjourned until October 27. He asked that in the interval she be confined to the debtors’ prison. Judge Lukin said that on the last occasion Mrs Edols was in the debtors’ prison she contrived to get to a telephone and appeal to Mrs Styles to say something that she had no right to say. Mrs Edols, because of her persistent refusal to answer questions, and her broken promises, was not entitled to any concession. She would have to go back to gaol, but if she changed her mind and consented to answer the questions which the Court required, he was prepared to come over specially from Melbourne to take her evidence. When Mrs Edols was leaving the Court in custody of a wardress, she whispered; “The next time I come here I will go out with flying colours.” MRS EDOLS’ FINANCE METHODS. Mrs Edols made a practice of asking personal friends and relations to advance her large sums on the sup. posed security of her “expectations” from alleged investments or from other financial acquaintances. She gave promissory notes or cheques as security. These were systematically dishonoured; and that was all. In the end people got tired of waiting for money that never arrived, and so Mrs Edols came ■ before the Official Receiver Evidence showed that she had borrowed £4700 on notes of hand from her cousin, Mr A. G. Edwards, a solicitor; £lOOO from Dr. la Touche, another relation; about £5OOO from an intimate friend, Mrs Vivers; Utz and Bode, city sharebrokers, lent her £1500; Roy Edols, of Melbourne, another relative, lent her £3OOO, and the list closes with “Ernest Edols, retired grazier, of Darling Point, husband of the bankrupt,” with a claim against her estate for £lO,OOO.

In a debter’s prison Mrs Edols would not be compelled to work, but at Long Bay, imprisoned for “contempt,” she has to wear prison garb, get up at 6.30 a.m., and breakfast on porridge, dry bread and tea. She must sew most of the day, and get back to her cell after four o’clock—and lights are out at 9 p.m. It does not seem an attractive round for'a “society woman” used to luxury, and she frankly confesses that she “loathes” it. Yet when she came into Court on the last occasion, “attired in a grey costume with fur collar, and wearing a black felt hat with drooped brim,” she smiled cheerfully at her husband, and “sat composedly with hands folded in her lap.”

The reiteration of the National Expenditure Commission of the recommendation made in its interim report that the Main Highways revenue fund and the capital fund under the Motor Spirits Taxation Act should be abolished and in effect placed under political control is not meeting with the approval of the North Island (N.Z ) Motor Union. In a letter addressed to the Hawke’s Bay Automobile Association the secretary of the union stated that, acting on the lines of the decision of the union in connection with the interim report of the National Expenditure Commission, he had taken the matter up with the New Zealand Counties’ Association and the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, inviting their co-operation to the end that the Main Highways Board and its finance might be preserved. The secretary of the South Island (N.Z.) Motor Union had advised him that that union was acting in concert with the North Island Union.