1,000 Brits in foreign jails on drug charges

The arrest of Britons for alleged drug smuggling in a foreign country isn’t unusual.

According to Scots-born Dr Jennifer Fleetwood, who has researched the drug trade, 1,000 Brits currently languish in foreign jails on drug charges.

She said: “More than 100 Britons were arrested in the Caribbean and Latin America last year, the vast majority for alleged drugs offences.”

She believes the reason this case has made headlines is that Reid and McCollum Connolly fit a stereotype of drug traffickers.

“Films often present drug traffickers as manipulative, foreign gangsters. Women’s involvement is seen as involuntary as innocent mules,” she said.

The case of Melissa Reid and Michaella McCollum Connolly has parallels with that of Karyn Smith and Patricia Cahill, two Birmingham teenagers arrested in 1990 in Thailand on suspicion of drug trafficking.

They were accused of trying to smuggle 32 kg of heroin from Thailand to Amsterdam.

Like Reid and McCollum Connolly, Smith and Cahill claimed coercion. But they were told that, unless they pleaded guilty, they would face the death penalty.

Smith and Cahill were eventually granted a Royal Pardon 1993, after serving three years in a Thai prison.

Such was the devastating effect on the Smith family that more than 20 years on, Smith’s dad Eric says they are only just getting over it. According to Dr Fleetwood, it’s possible that Reid and McCollum Connolly were coerced.

But even if they were, they’ll have a hard time proving it.

“Drug traffickers aren’t stupid,” Dr Fleetwood says. “Reid and McCollum Connolly may have been forced and they may not have known what they were carrying.

“But they could have a hard job making that stand up in court. Like many others in prisons around the world, they may have little choice but to plead guilty in the hope their remorse might count in their favour.