WOMAN SENTENCED FOR BLACKMAIL

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19070, 15 May 1930, Page 12

WOMAN SENTENCED FOR BLACKMAIL

j I CLERGYMAN INCLUDED AMONG HER VICTIMS. I I (Special to the “ Star.”) LONDON, April 2. ' “You are a very wicked woman, apart from the character that the police have given you, and which 1 ignore for the purpose of sentence. You have written a series of the most wicked and cruel letters in order to extort money from your victim,” said Mr Justice Swift, in sentencing Mrs Doris Jee to eighteen months for blackmail. Mr Justice Sv.’ift, during the hearing, revealed that he had been Jee’s counsel ‘in a breach of promise action iri 1917. and offered to send the case to another. Judge. Jee pleaded that he should complete it. The prosecution said that Jee bigamously married a clergyman’s nephew in 1918, and wrote a letter to the clergyman alleging that his nepl e\v had told her that they had been associated in grave offences. She demanded £3OOO. which, she. alleged, was necessary to keep her husband out oi prison, or she would refer the allegations to the- Bishop of London. Police gave evidence that Jee was 1 married in Calcutta in 1908, and went to England, where she sued a diamond merchant for breach of promise and seduction in 1917, and was awarded £750. This decision was quashed on the discovery tha}; she was married. Later was associated with a notorious West End woman, and also young swell fraudsmen posing as naval and military officers. Jee also sued a colonel for £IOOO, alleging immorality. Later she declared that she was about to publish a book entitled, “The Diary of a Discreet Woman,” in which she mentioned many distinguished men, including a peer who referred the mat ter to Scotland Yard, which describe! her as a most dangerous woman, and an immoral blackmailer of the worst type. Jee collapsed when she heard the sentence.