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According to Terry Bourke's account,
after Emily Perry threatened to sue Grundys for libelling her in a plotline similar in some details to her own trial, cut versions of the seven episodes involving Edna Pearson were prepared for showing in Adelaide.
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These cut versions were also shown in most UK regions, apart from Meridian which showed some (but not all) of the original versions.
Channel 5 disappointed many fans by not showing all of the originals: in fact they showed only two of the original uncut versions, less than Meridian did.
For reasons best known to themselves, Grundy appear to have supplied Malta's Channel One with the original versions of all seven episodes for showing in March 2000.
The Australian DVD release in 2008 used the cut versions of all the Edna episodes. For more details see the Canberra Prisoner page
A double disc set called "The Edna Pearson atory" was released in the UK in February 2010, making the full versions available on DVD for the first time. I have added the timings for the episodes on these discs to the table below. Slight differences from the previously calculated "uncut" timings can be attributed to differences in editing of final credits and commercial break intro and outro. There was no "uncut" version in the set to restore the three small dialogue cuts in episode 471.
The cut versions were used for the repeat run on 111Hits in Australia in December 2012, even though Emily Perry had died earlier in the same year (see the link to an article in adelaidenow further down this page). Possibly the complaint made to the Australian Press Council about this article showed that this is still a sensitive issue although the official response to a comment about the cuts on the station's Facebook page was as follows: "Our editors do absolutely no editing from the tapes we received unless there is a technical glitch that needs to be cut around. So the way we air them is the way the tapes were sent to us."
The table below shows the approximate timings of the episodes in the
versions I have seen - including credits but excluding commercial breaks.
If you have any information on the versions shown in other regions or countries,
please let me know.
| Granada | Meridian | Channel 5 | Malta | Sweden | DVD release | Uncut DVD release |
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| Episode 463 | 41 mins 30 seconds | 41 mins 30 seconds | 41:25 | Original version [45:42] | 45:12 | 41:53 | 45:36 |
| Episode 464 | 42 mins | 42 mins | 40:59 (extra cut!) | Original version [44:35] | 44:03 | 42:34 | 44:33 |
| Episode 465 | 37 mins | Original version [45:04] | 36:43 mins | Original version | 45:19 | 37:20 | 46:02 |
| Episode 466 | 38 mins | 38 mins | 36:36 (extra cut!) | Original version [43:15] | 42:59 | 38:38 | 43:40 |
| Episode 467 | 38 mins | Original version [45:30] | Original version | Original version | 45:41 | 38:12 | 46:21 |
| Episode 468 | 39 mins | Original version [43:30] | Original version [43:30] | Original version | 43:58 | 40:30 | 44:41 |
| Episode 469 | 33 mins | Original version [44:35] | 33:02 | Original version | 44:49 | 33:32 | 45:10 |
| Episode 470 | - | 44:13 | 43:56 | - | 45:04 | 44:36 | 44:36 |
| Episode 471 | - | - | 42:21 | - | - | 42:49 | - |
Links below are for Australian newspaper articles available online covering the original case:
4 Aug 1981 Convicted woman to appeal The Age
1 May 1982 Husband Backs Charged Woman Sydney Morning Herald
13 Jan 1983 Poisoning case dropped after High Court ruling Sydney Morning Herald
11 Sep 1985 Witness In Poison-case Extradition Appeal Dies The Age
20 Dec 1985 Adelaide Woman On Murder Charge Faces Extradition Sydney Morning Herald
1 Jun 1986 An end Sydney Morning Herald
3 Jun 1986 Perry To Sue After Murder Charge Dropped Sydney Morning Herald
3 Jun 1986 Bizarre Tale Of Emily, Four Men And Poison? Sydney Morning Herald
3 Feb 2012 Emily Perry dies after life poisoned by cruel suspicion adelaidenow
The last article above was the subject of a complaint to the Australian Press Council.
Updated 01 January 2013