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Guest Character Profiles > Christabel Bancroft Syd Zygier

Christabel Bancroft 2022

When the Restoration Order cult attempted to recruit Harlow Robinson, Corey Smythe-Jones befriended her while she was visiting London, before following her back to Australia, claiming that he was there on business. As Harlow and Corey grew closer, he did his best to alienate her from her friends and family, hopeful that he would eventually wear her down to the point where she could be recruited. However, Harlow wasn't quite ready to be in a relationship with Corey, explaining that she was still hung up on Ned Willis, and so Corey met up with another member of the Restoration Order, Christabel Bancroft, as they tried to come up with a new plan for recruitment. Christabel made it clear to Corey that if he was serious about advancing in the Order, then he'd need to find a way to bring Harlow in, and he assured her that he wasn't about to give up. However, Corey was actually double-crossing Christabel - after meeting Harlow in London, he'd persuaded her to burn the diary of her late mother, Prue, who'd been a member of the Order herself. After going back to the burnt diary, Corey had retrieved a key to a safe from its charred remains, which had opened a safe where he'd found a USB. The USB contained a file of Prue sleeping with a senior member of the Order, something that Christabel was desperate to avoid becoming public, but Corey made a copy for himself before returning the USB to her, aware that he might need it as a bargaining tool in the future.

As Corey continued his attempts to identify the key people in Harlow's life and isolate her from them, he also started drugging her, and found another possible recruit for the Order in the form of Freya Wozniak, who was struggling in the wake of the revelations that she and David Tanaka had deliberately left a seriously injured Gareth Bateman to die, and had lost her career as a nurse. With Corey's behaviour causing David - who was also Harlow's uncle - to become suspicious, Christabel left him to work on fixing the problem, whilst she focused her efforts on recruiting Freya. With Freya volunteering at the Sonya Rebecchi Foundation, Christabel found her there and struck up a conversation, suggesting that she might like to attend a coaching group with her. Freya, however, wasn't keen on the idea, so Christabel gave up, later meeting with Corey at a secluded cottage, where they had beds and ropes ready in the basement, planning the next step for Harlow and Freya - conversion therapy.

Not about to give up on a potential new recruit, Christabel engineered another chance meeting with Freya, this time at the Waterhole. She explained that she'd put herself on the list of volunteers at the Sonya Rebecchi Foundation, then asked if Freya had thought any further about attending the self-improvement coaching seminar. Freya insisted that she wasn't interested, but Christabel gave her a leaflet, telling her to recycle it if she had no use for it. Realising that she was getting nowhere, Christabel apologised to Freya when they next met up, as Freya would be giving Christabel her orientation at the foundation, and she explained that she might have come on too strong about the seminar and didn't want them to get off on the wrong foot. With Freya agreeing to a fresh start, Corey, meanwhile, had realised that David was growing more suspicious of him and had decided that it was time to get Harlow out of Erinsborough, taking her for a weekend in a cottage in Daylesford. Back in Erinsborough, as Freya and Christabel worked on some donations at the foundation, Freya was becoming increasingly uneasy about the newcomer, having spotted a cardigan belonging to Harlow in her car, and seeing the last address on the car's satnav, Rose Cottage in Daylesford. After learning that Corey had taken Harlow to Daylesford, and that everyone was having trouble contacting her, Freya decided to go and check out the cottage for herself, finding Harlow in a confused state, having been drugged. When she then went to try and help Harlow, Corey hit her with a metal watering can, knocking her out, before contacting Christabel to let her know what was happening.

As Corey warned Christabel that she needed to fix the mess with Freya, he tied her to the bed in the basement, then told Harlow that they were going on an adventure. As Corey drove off with Harlow, Freya woke up to find herself trapped and, before long, Christabel arrived, telling Freya that she was going to love being a part of her 'new family'. As she spoke about being born into the Order, and of their retreat in Apollo Bay where Corey was taking Harlow, Freya managed to free one of her arms from the rope and, as Christabel was putting drugs into Freya's tea, Freya managed to smash the light bulb, the only light source in the room, plunging them into darkness. Managing to free herself, Freya then knocked Christabel out and locked her in the room, as she got out of the cottage to find Levi and David, who'd worked out what was going on. Christabel was then arrested, as the others set off to try and find Harlow before it was too late. While Harlow was then rescued, Corey managed to make a getaway and, at the police station, Christabel refused to say anything.

When it became clear that the Order weren't interested in helping Christabel to get out of her predicament, Freya offered to try to get through to her. She told Christabel that nobody was coming to help her and that she was just as much of a victim as any of them, but she needed to realise that her life was worth so much more than being a part of the Restoration Order. Though initially refusing to listen, Christabel finally realised that Freya was right and she told the police everything she knew about what Corey had been doing to Harlow, how they'd targeted her due to her wealthy family and the hope that she'd be as susceptible as her mum was. She insisted, however, that she had no idea where Corey had gone, but when he was eventually caught a few weeks later, he revealed that the video of Prue showed her with Corey's dad, Michael, and Prue had been planning to use it to blackmail her way back into the Order. Though Corey had been trying to help his father by keeping a copy of the video, he told Harlow that both his dad and the Order had abandoned him since he failed to recruit Harlow, but she had no sympathy for him and told him to rot in hell.