WOMAN BLACKMAILER

NZ Truth, Issue 868, 15 July 1922, Page 11

WOMAN BLACKMAILER

/'Merges* And Cruel"' In the Grip of An Adventuress. A woman's astounding career of wrongdoing was summed up at the Old Bailey recently by Mr. Justice McCardle. His lordship, said: You have been a blackmailer for many ■ years. - You are a -woman of merciless will. You are criminal, cruel, and dangerous. He then sentenced her to four years' penal servitude- ' -. Justification for the judge's remarks was .amply provided by the. story of the woman's misdoings, as told by the police. Margaret Cornwallis, who gave her age as 48— it was, m fact, 56^ — was on trial for conspiracy to. obtain money from the executors of the late Mr. Algernon de Lisle Strickland, a toanker. She .was also charged with forgery, conspiracy to defeat justice, and attempting to obtain £2100 by false, prer' tences, the* allegation being that she had -added a figure naught. /'DANGEROUS LUNATIC."; With her was Bertram Lodge (38), artist, who had pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy both to obtain money from' the executors and to defeat the course of justice."

* It was shown that Lodge was completely under the will of the woman, and that by her "merciless , will" he had been degraded to a dirty and halfstarved shadow of a man.

■So much was this " the case, said counsel on behalf . of Lodge, that he spoke, thought and wrote exactly what she told him. Eventually she took, him to 'a doctor and said that he was a dangerous lunatic who had delusions that he had murdered people m Richmond Park and at Brighton.

j v BUILT MANY HOUSES. The police had an amazing story to tell of the woman's past.

She herself, \ however, made several statements before 1 being sentenced. One was that she had erected" many houses without architect or foreman, and the sinews of her right arm had been so hurt that she could not have committed forgery. She also admitted that she was a ' "great gambler," and said • that her father gave her a big present of several hundred pounds on his 'deathbed. . 'i • Then came the scathing summing up of the judge, the verdi'bt of guilty, and the 'police story of prisoner's past. s -

Her maiden name,, said DetectiV^ Inspector Burgess, was Minnie Guy, and' she was born m Shanghai. Her father was a doctor. In 1886 she married at St. George's, Hanover Square, John St. Aubyrx, an architect; In 1888 Mr. St. Aubyn obtained a divorce. , TWICE DIVORCED. .1 In \1893 she , married, at Brighton, •Norman Brown, and m 1894, again, she was divorced. Misconduct with three different people was alleged.

' In 1901 she married Frederick Timothy, commonly known as Donald Cornwallis. In 1905 she filed a petition against him, but the King's Proctor intervened, , arid the decree nisi was res'r cinded. That marriage was still subsisting. . ' . , "She became acquainted with Mr. Strickland m 1903." t tho officer said, "and has continually preyed* l upon 'him for money. She met Lodge m 1906, .and encouraged him at her house. In 1907 she induced Lodge to go -to the South of France' with her without the knowledge of his pai - ents. From 1908 to 1921 Lodge lived with her.

"He was a clevsr artist, and he went about Soho with his .sketches. Two la.'ies who kept a restaurant, took pity on him, and ultimately he married one of them. He had absolutely recovered his self-respect." ■

Mrs. Cormvallie: had obtained large sums of money from Lodge's parents. * The Judge:. Do . you think she was blackmailing Lodge? — I think so When he was trying to get away from' her she did all she could to prevent it.

The Judge: Do you mean she kept him m her power? — That is so.

. Mr. Ronald Oliver (for Lodge) said his client' was absolutely m the power of .Cornwallis. He was educated at Charterhouse arid met Cornwallis when lie was 23 and she was 40 or so. . He. was a .pitiable figure, a prisoner m Cornwallis's house, with matted hair, and was half-starved- He had been seen 'begging for, food and eating filthy stale 'bread. .■.-.'

Whep the present action came' on Lodge.' found himself m the . witnessbox with his old mistress questioning him. "Was, it any wonder that the old habits reasserted themselves?" counsel asked.

My. Justice McCardle, passing sentence, said he was glad Cornwallis was abnormal for the sake of the womanhood of this country. ! *

Lodge was sentenced to four months' imprisonment m the second division.