Thailand. Australian Drug Trafficker Prisoner Going Home.

Now this story is from Australia and it’s regarding a prisoner exchange/transfer programme that they have with Thailand.

A Perth drug trafficker Holly Deane-Johns is set to return to Australia after spending 6 years incarcerated in the Klong Prem Prison in Chatuchak, Thailand.

She was caught trying send 10.4 grams of pure heroin to Australia in 2000 and is now serving 31 years jail. She was originally facing the death penalty but her plea of guilty saved her this fate.

The State Government today informed Federal Justice Minister David Johnston that it had agreed to allow her to transfer to a West Australian jail - after previously having refused the request.

An Australian newspaper revealed in 2006 that West Australian Corrective Services Minister Margaret Quirk was refusing to allow Ms Deane-Johns to transfer to WA. Her only reasoning at the time was that Ms Deane-Johns boyfriend - Stephen Wallace, who was serving 15 years in an Australian Prison for offences relating to the import of heroin - was also serving time in a West Australian jail.

Now here’s the really shit part I don’t agree with. The Australian Government will now seek the consent of the Thai Government to Ms Deane-Johns transfer and its proposed terms and conditions.

Why should she be allowed to go home to nice prisons that are more like a backpacker’s room but also you get 3 free meals a day and I am sure the facilities and hygiene is a lot better too? This woman did the crime and in a foreign country that is extremely strict with their drug laws and she would have known this, if she didn’t, she was an incredibly stupid person.

I believe she should spend the entire 31 year sentence suffering in the Thai prison so she knows the idiocy she did by trafficking drugs in Thailand. She should wake everyday and know that she if being punished for being a fool. She should be thankful she isn’t facing the death penalty.

Am I being to harsh? Am I being unfair? Am I out of touch with society? These are questions that I answer “no” to. If it was me in her shoes I am sure that I would want to go home to my own country as well, spend my sentence in jails that were better than what I have read about in books and stories about Thai prisons but again if I did committed an offence I have to wear the consequence.

The biggest disagreement I have is that once Miss Deane-Johns transfer has happened she will only be required to serve another 5 years in prison and then will be eligible for parole and on supervision order and will be on parole for 5 years then.

So a Thai court gives her 31 years in jail and she serves 6 years in Thailand and another 5 years in Australia. That adds up to 11 years and then she is out on parole! That stinks, that’s wrong. She still should be serving another 20 years in prison. This again though is Australia’s justice system to a tee. Its sentencing procedures are disgraceful and often comical when you compare the offence to the sentence.

I am simply for, you do a crime in another country then you stay there and do your sentence, no exchanges/transfers. This is bureaucracy at its best or governments scratching each others asses.

So how much sympathy do I have for this lady? Not an ounce, not the slightest bit of sympathy. She is so bloody lucky that Australia has this agreement with Thailand not like Indonesia or Singapore where there are Australians fighting to stop being executed for trafficking. So she should be kissing politicians hands and feet and if and when she does get out stay well away from her former boyfriend and maybe this experience will lead her on a new path for life.

Sadly, I am a pessimist though and I do believe the saying of “once a junkie, always a junkie”.

Brunty
Drug trafficker story here