I am a Prisoner in the Bangkok Hilton

At some stage during their incarceration all Britons will consider whether to repatriate from Thailand back to the UK. After cursory research the majority reject the facility. Those that feel that possibly they have an advantage by doing so formalise their intentions by requesting that Mrs Dufall of the Embassy initiates the request by contacting the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) – a division of the UK Ministry of Justice overseeing the incarceration of offenders in British Prisons. We British inmates in Thai jails have been told by Mrs Dufall that this is the official process and nearly all accept this verbal statement. However, this is untrue. An applicant, such as myself, is free to submit their intention directly to NOMS and therefore bypass the British Embassy. What is impressed on us is that NOMS can arbitrarily decide, without stating any reason whatsoever, to reject the application. Whilst this contingency is permitted for by the UK/Thai repatri...

Due to the troubles in Thailand recently we have not heard much from Gary and so updates have been sparse. However, things are getting back to normal and we have a few blogs to upload as and when we get the chance. In the meantime here is an article by Erika Fry about the routine use of torture by the Royal Thai Police to force people to sign confessions of guilt. http://www.ahrchk.net/ahrc-in-news/mainfile.php/2006ahrcinnews/763/ This is important as the British Government's stance is that they do not help people who have pled guilty in the Thai Courts. This means they will not support any requests for a Kings Pardon by British Nationals and without the UK Governments support these requests fail. By not recognizing that the guilty admissions were obtained by torture and then not supporting their own subjects afterwards due to the admission of guilt the UK Government is effectively condoning the torture of British Nationals. Article written by Jake