From the Age:

Australian causes stir at Irving trial
February 21, 2006 - 6:09AM

Former Australian beauty queen and controversial London socialite Michele Renouf has caused a stir at historian David Irving’s holocaust-denial trial in Vienna, protesting on his behalf.

Lady Renouf - a former wife of the late New Zealand financier Sir Frank Renouf - has long been an advocate of right-wing views.

She arrived at the trial of the British historian on Monday and made her views plain to assembled media, calling for the bodies of “so-called Holocaust victims to be exhumed to see whether they died from typhoid or gas”.

Renouf, 56, who described herself as an independent documentary-maker and “family friend” of David Irving, was wearing a pinstriped trouser suit and a Union Jack lapel pin.

She was accompanied by two unnamed men wearing the same badge.

She told reporters: “I am here to free David Irving and free Austria from this totalitarian law.”

Austria and Germany both consider denying the Holocaust to be a criminal offence, and Irving faces up to 10 years imprisonment for comments he made in 1989 in Austria.

Renouf praised Irving for “standing up to the Zionists” before a member of the Austrian press shouted at her: “Do you think your British flag entitles you to bring your Nazi propaganda into this court?”

Renouf is no stranger to controversy. She has been expelled from London’s exclusive Reform Club on Pall Mall.

A club formed 166 years ago to advocate progressive views, its former members have included Sir Winston Churchill, Henry James, H G Wells, E M Forster, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sean Connery.

Renouf caused trouble by inviting Irving to the club.

Renouf, born plain Michele Mainwaring, was crowned Miss Newcastle in 1968.

She acquired her title through being the third wife of Sir Frank Renouf.

The marriage ended shortly after Sir Frank discovered her father was not dead as she had claimed but a truck driver from The Entrance, and that she was not the former wife of a Russian count.