Australia Australia - Marion Barter, 51, missing after trip to UK, Jun 1997 #4

[JLZ]

Didn’t it say in the podcast recently (from inquest) that the bank person testified that Marion had a high interest account and was limited to only taking out $5k per day , I’m assuming without penalty to her already accrued interest she’d earnt.

There are accounts such as term deposits where if you take out any of it you're penalised retrospectively on the whole balance. I never heard of one with a penalty applied if withdrawals exceeded a daily limit. What you report the podcast saying doesn't favour your alternative or mine.

 

[angeliquemarkos1]

What if … just what if … con man somehow influences Marion to change name.. they go overseas, Marion meets with some sort of foul play, accomplice lady friend returns to aus on florabella passport, enters bank with cards and passport etc . In 1997 we certainly wouldn’t have her passport scanners, how thorough do we think identity checks were with photos given up to now a lot of aspects don’t seem to have been super thorough? Maybe too simple but maybe we need to look at this case in the simple way

 

[angeliquemarkos1]

Also do we know if bank details/ card were ever changed to match with Florabella Passport ?

 

[Seriallyaddicted]

There are accounts such as term deposits where if you take out any of it you're penalised retrospectively on the whole balance. I never heard of one with a penalty applied if withdrawals exceeded a daily limit. What you report the podcast saying doesn't favour your alternative or mine.

What do you mean by your last sentence, sorry don’t understand.

 

[Seriallyaddicted]

What if … just what if … con man somehow influences Marion to change name.. they go overseas, Marion meets with some sort of foul play, accomplice lady friend returns to aus on florabella passport, enters bank with cards and passport etc . In 1997 we certainly wouldn’t have her passport scanners, how thorough do we think identity checks were with photos given up to now a lot of aspects don’t seem to have been super thorough? Maybe too simple but maybe we need to look at this case in the simple way

sorry hate to say but there is just too much evidence to show that it was Marion who came back to Australia. The list is very large .

 

[KiwiNZ]

What if … just what if … con man somehow influences Marion to change name.. they go overseas, Marion meets with some sort of foul play, accomplice lady friend returns to aus on florabella passport, enters bank with cards and passport etc . In 1997 we certainly wouldn’t have her passport scanners, how thorough do we think identity checks were with photos given up to now a lot of aspects don’t seem to have been super thorough? Maybe too simple but maybe we need to look at this case in the simple way

I am not sure of the point of them taking her overseas or getting her to change her name ? would they have not just carried out the murder and fraud in Australia.

 

[KiwiNZ]

sorry hate to say but there is just too much evidence to show that it was Marion who came back to Australia. The list is very large .

I agree I am totally in the "it was Marion that came back" camp. After that I have no clue what happened lol

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Thanks for your great idea.

It's one that could have happened.

What if … just what if … con man somehow influences Marion to change name.. they go overseas, Marion meets with some sort of foul play, accomplice lady friend returns to aus on florabella passport, enters bank with cards and passport etc . In 1997 we certainly wouldn’t have her passport scanners, how thorough do we think identity checks were with photos given up to now a lot of aspects don’t seem to have been super thorough? Maybe too simple but maybe we need to look at this case in the simple way

 

[TootsieFootsie]

I'm in both camps, sometimes at the same time

I agree I am totally in the "it was Marion that came back" camp. After that I have no clue what happened lol

 

[Seriallyaddicted]

I agree I am totally in the "it was Marion that came back" camp. After that I have no clue what happened lol

Yes it’s incredibly frustrating from that point when she comes back.
I just think that given she left $14k or so in the Barclays account in England and she never touched her super, and no one saw her after she came back and took her money out (and given the sheer publicity surrounding the case) I dont think she lived for very long after coming back. I hope I’m wrong on that point.
I strongly believe there is a remakel connection with her name change, the ad in the paper, the person working at Trendwest and the tall man she was seen with in the car. I’m really looking forward to seeing what the police uncover.
I think most likely she was taken advantage of and her money stolen from her. Whether she was murdered or suicided I’m not sure.

 

[JLZ]

What do you mean by your last sentence, sorry don’t understand.

You said the podcast said that the bank person testified that *Marion had a high interest account AND *was limited to only taking out $5K per day. The limit could be a feature of the individual account or of the type of account. What you've reported doesn't support one more than another. You say you assume there would be an interest penalty if more were taken out, it's a possibility, it's not implied by what the podcast said there.

Edit: In one post you said it was your own assumption, but I've just found a later one where you said the podcast actually said Marion would lose interest if she exceeded the limit. In which case, disregard my interruption.

 

[PhilOlivettifan]

Even back in 1997, UK car hire companies were not going to rent cars to someone whose passport said Florabella and whose driving licence still said Marion, unless of course she had the Deed Poll with her to prove the change of name. It's like when you get married and there's that period where you have some documents in your maiden name, some in your married name, as long as you can back it up with the marriage certificate that's fine.

As for the "Dutch dentist" - assuming they were speaking English - if someone from the Netherlands, Dutch speaking Belgium, Luxembourg and possibly even Germany, German-speaking Switzerland or Denmark told me they were Dutch I'd probably believe them. Especially if you're not used to hearing English spoken as a second language by Europeans.

However, I suspect that the dentist and Mazz were just other B&B guests who Marion had chatted with over breakfast or something.

Yes, I wonder if "Remakel" was actually a temporary name. When she married she would just need the new marriage certificate to get new ID in another name altogether - new licence, new passport etc.

 

[Bibno]

If the person wasn't Marion, that would have been harder.

I think that's the point I was making. It would be quite easy for Marion to have adequate identification/knowledge of her accounts to close it or make changes to it, but if it were someone else they would probably not have all the required information.

I really don't know whether it was Marion who came back and emptied the account, but if it was I'm sure she would have had a more efficient way of going about it.

I also think, but I may be wrong, that Marion did not regularly use the branches that were used to withdraw the $5,000 per day.

 

[Bibno]

Didn’t it say in the podcast recently (from inquest) that the bank person testified that Marion had a high interest account and was limited to only taking out $5k per day , I’m assuming without penalty to her already accrued interest she’d earnt.

Yes, it did and that's my point really. The air fare back to Australia would have been more than the loss of interest, and general inconvenience of closing the account and moving the money. I would think that removing cash is better for a criminal than a bank transfer because there is no traceability.

 

[Bibno]

I am really bewildered too be

Building on my previous comments, one of the reasons I find the international impostor theory so difficult to imagine is that there would have to be at least one woman involved, independently or working with a man, more likely, if we are going with the whole, "let's fly to England and get married, but also not get married because we can't legally do that within the time frame, so we will just do some sightseeing here together for no real reason other than to make your family believe that you are in England when we could have done that from Aus" scenario. (I'm not making fun of anyone who thinks this, by the way, I still don't rule it out completely.)

So the woman is either from the UK, from Aus, or from another country altogether. She has to be the one to travel back on Florabella's passport, regardless of whether the man accompanies her.

If she's from another country than the UK and enters using her own, real identity, the passport that she entered the UK with will register as never having left, meaning that her travel Visa will have expired at some point within the UK. This is insanely illegal, and could have led to a block being put on her passport. So she would have to be using another fake passport, or just not care.

Wherever she was travelling from, she would have Florabella's passport. Then, presuming that she wants to ever leave the country again, she would need her own passport. And then, she would also need to have Marion's documents with her to carry out the bank withdrawals.
None of this is impossible, but the STAKES involved in this would be HUGE. It's not technically a crime to carry identification for other people in your luggage, but if security had checked her bags there would have been A LOT of questions about having documents with three different names, all supposedly the same person. If they were professional criminals, which they would have to be to pull this off, I cannot see them taking such a huge risk when it would have been FAR easier to conduct the crime in Aus and just give the impression that Marion had left for England without her actually going.

I've explained this poorly, I think, but that's just my two cents.

I agree, at every point there's something which just doesn't make sense.

When I first found this forum, I managed to get quite clear about a few things, but over the last few days I have become more and more confused. I think I need a diagram or flow-chart to understand.

At the moment we can't know who it was that emptied the bank accounts, it could have been Marion or it could have been someone else, either with or without her permission.

So the only point I could confidently make is that it would be a lot of unnecessary expense and a massive PITA for Marion to return to Australia from England to withdraw the money in a piecemeal fashion. If that was what happened, which we don't know.

QUOTE:
If she's from another country than the UK and enters using her own, real identity, the passport that she entered the UK with will register as never having left, meaning that her travel Visa will have expired at some point within the UK. This is insanely illegal, and could have led to a block being put on her passport. So she would have to be using another fake passport, or just not care.

You know, I don't think this would have been an issue. I really don't think that in 1997 people were registered when entering or visiting the UK. I'm also pretty sure that visas weren't connected to actual visits, it was enough to just have the stamp in your passport. I know security in Australia is much stricter.

I also think if you are going to murder someone and steal their money it's quite likely that you wouldn't care too much about doing illegal stuff.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

Perhaps the woman who came back was the one who stole her purse or wallet and was said to look "uncannily" like her.

I just don't know that the assets Marion had would be enough to go to all the trouble to play a big con and then murder her.

 

[TootsieFootsie]

But it is more likely that it was Marion taking out her money.

That doesn't rule out that she was under the control of someone else or was told to take the money out, otherwise something bad would happen to her family.

 

[SaintGertrude]

I find it amazing that any con person would go too such great lengths with all we know so far. How much was Marion worth financially? By todays standards maybe more than we may think. It would be interesting if someone can work out her total worth with paintings included.

 

[Mjjj14]

I’m a whole page behind in my reading of recent posts but I just had a random thought.

I am currently gravitating towards the theory that Marion was running from TSS. More specifically from LG and his allegations.

I’m hypothesising that Marion left Australia more for the benefit of escaping TSS and those allegations. Perhaps she decided to go for a bit initially to get away to test the waters over there (she mentions in the postcard that she could’ve had a job), decides she likes it and then covertly return to Australia to wrap up her affairs with the intention of returning to the UK.

She then either takes her own life, meets someone dangerous who has seen her withdrawing large sums of money or leaves Australia again on false or stolen identity documents (no idea where she got these as she doesn’t seem the type to be able to acquire them).

My current theory is that it was LG in the car with her that night at McDonald’s. Perhaps she wanted a discreet meeting with him to attempt to patch things up/smooth things over and to get him to back off with his false allegations about her.

Completely wild speculation on my behalf, I’m just trying to come up with a neat explanation considering I believe there’s too much evidence to suggest she didn’t return to Australia.

 

[poppypopcorn]

Back in 1997 people were most definitely registered ENTERING the UK by air, but not leaving by any means. Passports stamped, visas checked, especially for non-EU nationals. Marion however as an Australian national would not have needed a Visa for a tourist stay of up to 6 months. No interview at the Embassy, passport just stamped at Heathrow with her entry date. If she had planned on marrying an EU citizen in the UK, or working, that's a different matter. And you can't enter on a tourist visa and then apply from within the UK for a working/fiancee visa. She'd have had to go back to Australia to do that.

Marion could however have travelled within the EU during her time in Sussex. Her passport wouldn't have been stamped leaving the UK on a ferry, plane or Eurostar train. Quote from the Guardian newspaper in 2018:

"May, during her time as home secretary, had repeatedly promised to introduce a full exit check programme through the e-borders system by the 2015 general election on the pledge of keeping track of everybody coming in and going out of Britain.

The chief inspector said that by June 2017, despite the promise of 100% coverage, gaps still remained in collecting data on those arriving by sea, ferries, for rail journeys in and out of Britain and travel to and from Ireland within the common travel area."

So 18 years after Marion was in the UK we were still not checking who was leaving. She could have been back and forward between England and the continent like a yo-yo and nobody would have noticed. As long as she didn't overstay that initial 180 days / 6 months, which she didn't.