A BRITISH law graduate who has vanished in Australia may have gambled her air fare away two days before she was due to leave the country.
Frances Embleton, 24, told her sister the day before she vanished how much she was looking forward to coming home, her father said yesterday. She was last seen hours before she was due to attend a leaving party thrown for her after a 12-month working holiday in Australia.
Ms Embleton was expected in Thailand on Monday, the day her Australian visa expired, for a holiday with family friends before returning home.
But she missed the flight for which she had paid only a deposit and has not contacted family, friends or police since.
Reports in Australia suggest that Ms Embleton, of Harpenden, Hertfordshire, may have gambled away the rest of her ticket money.
Witnesses told The Sydney Morning Herald that they saw a woman who was a “dead ringer” for Ms Embleton at a Sydney bar later that day.
The woman, who said that she was from North London, approached a group of drinkers in the 3 Wise Monkeys pub and asked them to buy her a drink because she had lost the money for her flight out of Australia at the Star City Casino. “She said she’d been gambling at the casino, lost all her money and was thinking of not going to her farewell party,” a friend of the men said.
“She told them that gambling was an addiction and she’d lost all her money. She said she’d put a deposit down for her flight home but hadn’t paid for the whole ticket. My friends said that she was down, seemed pretty depressed.”
The man said that his friends tried to calm the woman down and advised her to go to the party even though she had lost the money for her return ticket.
Ms Embleton’s father, Norman, said last night that the family was deeply concerned and surprised by the suggestion that she had squandered her money in this way.
“We are all very worried. We have no idea what has happened to her. It sounds very out of character — I didn’t know she was a gambler,” he said.
“She had enjoyed her trip a lot but was looking forward to coming home and starting work in the legal profession. Her sister Laura spoke to her last Friday and she told her she was excited about returning.” He added that Frances, the youngest of his three daughters, had graduated from the College of Law and then flown to Australia for a working gap year before coming back to take up a legal career.
“She is a normal young girl, very friendly and outgoing, but this doesn’t sound like her at all. We were told by her friends that she was missing after she didn’t go to her party.”
Mr Embleton, who runs a building company in Barnet, North London, said that the family had not heard from Frances for a week. He said: “I last spoke to her two weeks ago but would stay in regular contact through texts and e-mails, but these have stopped.”
“I’m speaking to the police every night and they are making inquiries. She didn’t have a permanent boyfriend. The last I knew she was staying at a friend’s place in Sydney. I have connections in Thailand and they were going to look after her for a few weeks while she saw the country.”
Mr Embleton begged his daughter to get in touch. Last night Sydney police could not confirm the sighting at the bar.
Times Online
