BLACKMAILING

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7980, 11 December 1911, Page 1

BLACKMAILING

TWO MEN AND AN OLD LADY PROCEEDINGS AT BOW STREET. By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright LONDON, December 8. Francis Henry Page, William Henry Glendining, and Frederick Marshall (an ex-solicitor) .were charged, on remand, at Bow street Police Court with blackmailing the Countess Hamil De Main of £3OO, the money being obtained under threat that certain’ letters would be published to her annoyance. The letters were by a Dan O 1 ’Connor (late of Sydney) and one Dobbie. The prosecuting counsel stated that the Countess De Main met John Hamilton Dobbie in Australia and New Zealand in 1899, and also knew Dan O’Connor in Australia. Dobbie, in 1908, was engaged to be married, and O’Connor and the Countess wrote an anonymous letter, which counsel described as libellous, to Dobbio’s prospective mother-in-law, hoping thereby to prevent the marriage. The prisoners had secured the letters, and used them as a basis for blackmailing. The prisoners had interviewed O’Connor, and sought to induce him to incriminate the Countess, who was afterwards taken to prisoners’ office and terrified into signing four bills of exchange for £IOO each, under threat of her and 0? Connor’s arrest. The prosecution stated that Dobbie ‘ was now. in Australia, and that the Countess was reputed to bo worth £12,000 a year. ; Tire Countess De Main denied that she wrote the anonymous letters herself. She did not know that O’Connor wrote them until afterwards. The case was adjourned.