GAOL RESCUE PLOT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 543, 27 August 1932, Page 22 (Supplement)

GAOL RESCUE PLOT.

titled Woman's admirer. A romantic young Englishman of title is believed to be me central figure of a “Scarlet Pimpernel plot to snatch from prison a woman who was concerned reI cently in a passion drama ot the Paris Hpurts. The French police are combing Paris and other towns quietly but systematically in the hope ot laying hands on the persons involved. The prisoner who lias been the object of this quixotic plot is Lady (Edme) Owen, widow of the English lubber planter, Sir Theodore Owen. Lady Owen, who is of Trench origin, was sentenced to tomyears’ imprisonment for attempting to murder the wife of u fashionable Paris i doctor. When the sentence was pronounced there was a dramatic protest from a smartly dressed young Englishman who had been following the trial, and seemed infatuated with the prisoner. The police declare they have the name and all necessary particulars of the Englishman involved, but for their own reasons they are keeping these back. It is alleged that the mystery Englishman and his friends arrived in the neighbourhood of the prison where Lady Owen is now serving her sentence and offered bribes to a wardress to pass letters to Lady Owen. One letter passed into the prison in this way outlined a plan for the prisoner’s escape. The letter did not give the name of the writer, but said he was a chivlilrous Englishman who had followed the trial of Lady Owen closely, and was in love with her. Once clear of the prison the party was to make for the coast of Normandy, where a fast motor launch would be in readiness to take the prisoner across the Channel, and a secure retreat had been prepared for her in a Sussex mansion. Lady Owen refused to have anything to do with the plot, and handed the principal letter to the governor of the prison.