WOMAN FOR TRIAL

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20387, 30 December 1937, Page 4

WOMAN FOR TRIAL

BLACKMAIL ALLEGED WANTED £3O FUR COAT (From a Correspondent) LONDON, December 4 Allegations that every time a man tried to break his 10 years’ association with a woman she threatened to communicate with his employer was made at Thames Police Court. Phoebe de Goode, aged 41, a tailoress, was committed for trial on a charge of uttering a letter demanding £3O by manacese from Mr “A.” Mr Edwin Clayton, prosecuting, said that on October 25 she told Mr “A” she wanted a £3O fur coat and held up an envelope addressed to his firm. Next day he received the following letter: “You promised £3O in all, no less, by Friday. Y’ou know you owe me a future. It is due to me ai'ted being a true life-long companion to you for 12 years and being engaged to be married to you. You have been wasting my years. . . . “If you fail me and others interfere God will take them, because the same thing happened before and you know it. Besides, you would not like me to post that letter you saw, would you?” Mr “A” said that for some years he had been paying dc Goode between £1 and £2 a week; latterly it had been £2. Mr Harris (Magistrate) : Out of £3 a week?—Yes. Mr “A” denied that he had promised to marry de Goode, hut he agreed that he gave her money to buy rings worth £67. He bought furniture for her because she threatened to expose him. De Goode said Mr “A” wrote her “love letters for a bright future.” “He posed as a rich man and. was going to do the world for my widowmother and I,” she said.