This is the face of ‘a vulnerable young woman’.
This is the face of a woman who felt unable to confide in the British officials who visited her every month in jail that she had chosen to artificially inseminate herself in jail in order to avoid the death sentence she felt sure was coming.
This is the face of the woman for whom Reprieve was funded by the tax payer via the Foreign Office to fly out to Laos to search for suitable counsel for her.
This is the face of the woman of whose trial Reprieve now says was ‘disgraceful’ and she was not given an independant lawyer in Laos. (So much for the hard pressed tax payers paying for the Foreign Office and Reprieve – can we have our money back please?)
This is the face of the woman whose lawyers pleaded for clemency and for the death sentence to be dropped to allow her to serve her time in a British Prison.
They did.
Her lawyer’s now say that ‘the Lao government’s handling of this case revealed their contempt for truth, decency and legal rights’!
They now claim that her life will be ‘thrown away simply to placate that regime’ if she is expected to serve her prison sentence in the UK for smuggling drugs into a country where the death sentence is mandatory.
John Watson, who she has now named as the Father of her child, is still in prison in Laos, following a similar conviction. The Foreign Office was in talks to allow him to serve his sentence in the UK.
The Reprieve lawyers want shooting – their comments today regarding the probity of the Laos government and Samantha Orobator’s trial have probably ensured that the Laos government never again show clemency to any British idiot who cannot understand that the death penalty for smuggling drugs means the death penalty for smuggling drugs.
We have no right to feel aggrieved at the reception given to Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, in Libya when the UK allows lawyers to bring actions like this concerning another countries legal system.
I blogged at the time of the clemency shown to her by the Laos government that she would probably end up as Baroness Crack of Brixton Road by the end of the decade – that outcome is getting ever closer. This is not a vulnerable young woman, this is a 20 year old deeply manipulative and psychopathic young woman who is manipulating the legal system to ensure that she can do what she wants, when she wants, without any repercussions whatsoever.
The fact that what she wanted to do was to make money out of bringing death and destruction by drugs to yet another generation of vulnerable young children is not even being mentioned.
You don’t end up with 1.5lb of Heroin in your suitcase without knowing something about it.
Anna is the landlady of the Raccoon Arms. She lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France and still takes a keen interest in British politics.
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Manipulative, moneymaking . etc … yes.
Death sentence: NO
I couldn’t give a monkey’s about what happens to Baroness Crack (if that’s what we’re calling her) but there is (soon to be / it may even already have happened that) an innocent baby is born into this ghastly situation and I’d put money on that baby’s outlook to go from v. bleak to much bleaker because Prison and Social Services will be there every step of the way … Let’s not kid ourselves – that child is coming into the world with the bare minimum of hope and someone may as well just stamp on that hope now, because that child’s future is bleak before it is even born. Do we Care? Care! Children in Care! Nice little Adverbite phrases – let’s see, shall we? I don’t really care what this woman had stashed in her suitcase or strapped to her body; I mind that there’s a baby being born because it was a way to avoid the death penalty. I could spit.
You are right of course Gloria, that is a heck of a legacy to begin life with – conceived by turkey baster for the convenience of your Mother…….
If we are all what our self regard allows us to be, then as you say, that poor child has no hope to start with.
Suppose that child falls into the hands of (for the sake of argument) Haringey Council Social Services? Another bludgeoned infant? What do we all expect for the mewling, puking newborn? Foster care at best. I am heartily sick of babies and children being used as a means to an end, be it a council house or a sharp stick with which to keep open a cash-scabbing wound. Sometimes I am ashamed of my gender and this is one of those times.
Incidentally, I am reminded of a media-wide case a few years ago of a woman who had one child already then fell pregnant with twins: the expectant mother felt she could not cope with three very young children and wished to have one of her unborn twins terminated, leaving her with only two children to care for. Her wish was the trigger for much media discussion, all the papers carried her story and many column inches were filled – yet now I can’t say whether she did obtain a termination for one of her twins or not. I do remember, however, a blunt-speaking friend of mine observing at the time that if she really felt she could deal with only two children then she should consider having her existing child killed, leaving her with the twins.
Your blunt speaking friend highlighted an uncomfortable truth – people would recoil with horror at the suggestion of killing the first child – and yet the ‘termination’ of one of the twins, or indeed abortion in general has become ‘dinner party’ conversation that no one seems to find strange.
I must away back to my bed Glo – I only ventured out for some more pain killers!
We all did recoil in horror at his suggestion but Bluntman stuck to his premise that the end result would be the same – only two children for the hard-pressed matriarch to deal with … the question is, which one do you kill?
Nighty-night Mme Raccoon, I am also away to my bed right now.
Sophies social choice.
We should have left her to be shot.
Every U.K. government goes on about how tough they are about drug control, then the bleeding heart liberals say oh! the drug war against drugs is not working, so drugs must be allowed.
Start shooting drug mules, drug users, drug dealers, the drug problem would be over in a year!
SO SIMPLE!!!!!
Can’t help but agree with Stuart here.
And of course, bear in mind that she is likely to be released in this country because the lawyers are arguing that her trial was unfair.
Boohoo, I’m all broken up about her. What about the lives that she was threatening by smuggling drugs?
I propose a compromise solution to deal with drug smugglers that will please “people should be allowed to take drugs” Libertarians, “lock-em-up and throw away the key” Right-wingers and “prison doesn’t work, everything is the fault of the capitalist west” Lefties. Give anyone caught smuggling drugs the choice between a trial and possible prison sentence or eat the drugs there and then.
Gallimaufrey,
I don’t have any problem with people taking drugs – that is their choice – I equally don’t have any problem with countries decideing that they will instill the death penalty for smuggling drugs – their choice.
I do have a problem with people expecting to impose their rules on unwilling participants – ie using the British courts to try to overule a decision made by the Laos courts. Orobator was not forced to travel to Laos, if she preferred British justice and British leniancy, then she should have remained in Britain. If you chose to travel to Laos then it is incumbant on you to take measures to ensure you don’t trangress their laws.
The point most respondents missed here is that it will screw up future chances of Britons abroad being repatriated if the courts there think the UK courts will just let them go, instead of serving their sentences.
And who the hell decided that legal aid should be made available to challenge the decisions of a couort trying someone under their own laws in their own country?
And yes, she should have been left, like all druggies, to rot overseas.
Why are my taxes being used to support this useless piece of dogcrap?
Ms Raccoon, an excellent restatement of “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. Hope you’re feeling better now.
Gallimaufrey,
I think Stuart also picked up on an essential detail – pity the poor sods who apply to have their sentence served in the UK – no chance after this.
I am feeling better thank-you, have now managed a month without smoking and its starting to get easier, or maybe my fangs are getting blunter, Mr G doesn’t seem to be rushing to the first aid box so often………poor man!
The Lao are probably delighted to be rid of this disgusting woman. The communo-fascists who run this country are delighted to welcome her back.
surely worrying about the “poor sods” who try and serve their laotian sentences out in uk runs contrary to the anger that the foreign office has to spend tax money on helping people like the crack baroness to do just that. if we all seem to agree that when in rome etc then we do not want those who break the law in laos to have the comfort of being “rescued”by the FO?
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