Brit found naked and cuffed to the cell bars in Pattaya

[lovedog100 1,372]

A Pattaya horror story

From ANDREW DRUMMOND,

Bangkok, December 7 2010

 

Naked and cuffed to the cell bars

 

These horrific pictures show a 53-yr-old Briton wasting away naked in a Thai police station and cuffed to the bars of his cell.

He is reported to have been there for three months, but certainly since November 23th, but nobody has sent him for hospital treatment. This is a police station in the resort town of Pattaya, 100 miles east of Bangkok. His luxury pillow is a plastic water bottle.

 

This man is under the care of police. He was found sleeping under cars in in nearby Jomtien and was found to be on overstay.

The man known to others purely as ‘John’ growls like an animal and has mental health issues. Sometimes he just sits and says nothing. It’s now known he has been deported from Thailand before for overstaying his visa. Thai police say he is unfit for court and do not know what to do with him.

 

They are awaiting on a decision from the British Embassy in Bangkok. But will, or should, the British government cough up for his treatment?

Unofficially Thai police say he has AIDs. That is why, they say, he is chained to the bars. It is to protect other inmates.

 

If however he is charged with an offense he should have appeared in court where judges could have seen his condition.

 

This man appears to be just one of the city’s casualties. Was his problem drink? women? money? or perhaps none of these or or all three. Nobody has come forward to help or tell the story.

And it’s at times like this that the neon lights of this city lose their allure.

This is a side of Pattaya not promoted in the tourist brochures.

 

“Other prisoners have been giving him some of their food, “ said the photographer and activist Benny Moafi, “but nevertheless he is just skin and bone. He will just die if nobody helps him – and nobody is. All food has to be bought.

“They say he does not want any help. But his condition is quite unbelievable.

“Somebody called me to go to the police station to have a look. The man has been beaten and clearly needs both medical and psychiatric care. But nothing has been done. One of the prisoners says he has been there three months.

“I tried to talk to him but could not get much sense. he seemed to be hallucinating.”

A spokesman for the Foreign and Common Wealth Office said: “ We are aware of the case. The man has been given consular assistance.”

Pattaya Police were not immediately available for comment.

Edited February 2, 2011 by lovedog100

[danboy 151]

SHIT!!

 

With a title like "Naked and cuffed to the cell bars in Pattaya", I thought things were improving at Alcatraz!!!

[henryski 6]

SHIT!!

 

With a title like "Naked and cuffed to the cell bars in Pattaya", I thought things were improving at Alcatraz!!!

poor man ,,, Edited December 9, 2010 by henryski

[Torres09 0]

That's pretty sad ,I hope it isn't macky.

 

Just kidding.

 

I hope this bloke gets the care he needs from the British Consulate.Fucking sad (but not surprising) that a foreigner could be treated like this by the Thai Plod.

[lovedog100 1,372]

A Briton found languishing, naked, and tied to the bars of a cell in Pattaya police station has been saved by an angel appearing in the form on an expatriate British women living in Pattaya.

 

This was written by the same guy that posted the first story. A woman named Tracy read about the man on one of the forums and got involved. Tracy, if you are reading this, thank you. Most of us on the forums are just a talk and complain bunch. It's refreshing to see someone actually take action, and save a man in dire need. My hat is off to you.

 

Naked and cuffed to the cell bars

 

And after being scrubbed and clothed he has been taken to hospital in Bangkok under police supervision and now hopefully will be looked after until his deportation to Britain for overstaying his visa.

 

The dramatic development happened early today after the women read about the plight of the Briton on this blog. She rushed to the police station to sort out the matter.

 

Tracy xxxxxxxx, who runs the Mellisa Cosgrove Children’s Foundation said: “After seeing the pictures I was horrified. I could not let this situation go on. He looked like he was a concentration camp survivor.

 

“I spoke to the police chief and it was clear that they wanted to help but did not know what to do as he was really the responsibility of Immigration Police.

 

“I called up the Pattaya-Bangkok hospital and they sent an ambulance around. We cleaned him up, gave him some clothes, and he was given a medical check to show that he was alright to travel.

 

“I have accepted responsibility for him and will watch him and go with him to court.

 

“Just as he was leaving the local Honorary Consul Howard Miller turned up with other staff. He said ‘Thank you for doing what we could not do.

 

“He asked what organization I belonged to. I said the organization that read this blog on the net.”

 

“If I had not seen this on your blog I really believe this man would have died. When I spoke to him he was quite compos mentes. He looked up and said to me: ‘Oh yes, I know you from television. You do very good work’ but I had never seen him ever before.

 

“But then later he started talking about leprechauns and pots of gold.

 

“The police were very good. They even chipped in with some of their own money to help him on his way.

 

“I just want to say thank you.”

 

The Briton was photographed at Pattaya police station by Benny Moalfi, an activist and campaigner for prison and justice reform in Thailand who later contacted this site.

Edited December 10, 2010 by lovedog100

[CheshireTom 1,377]

Tracy xxxxxxxx, who runs the Mellisa Cosgrove Children’s Foundation said: “After seeing the pictures I was horrified. I could not let this situation go on. He looked like he was a concentration camp survivor.

 

Tracy Cosgrove - quite why they didn't publish her surname is a bit of a mystery - is quite well-known in Glasgow for her work with kids in Thailand and Burma. Kudos to her - and the Benny Moalfi character.

 

I don't really know what to make of the Brit Honorary Consul in Pattaya though. It would surely have been worthwhile for him to publicise the guy's predicament through his media outlets. I'm sure he probably had his reasons not to.

Edited December 10, 2010 by CheshireTom

[BigDUSA 71]

Tracy Cosgrove - quite why they didn't publish her surname is a bit of a mystery - is quite well-known in Glasgow for her work with kids in Thailand and Burma. Kudos to her - and the Benny Moalfi character.

 

I don't really know what to make of the Brit Honorary Consul in Pattaya though. It would surely have been worthwhile for him to publicise the guy's predicament through his media outlets. I'm sure he probably had his reasons not to.

 

He probably was told "not to rock the boat". Thanks to Ms Cosgrove for taking action.

[samfreeland 64]

[lovedog100 1,372]

Interesting, when I found this story on Thai visa, it had been posted that day and had already gone to 9 pages. It was posted on the Secrets forum after this one, and is at 3 pages. Does that mean that Pattaya talk members are less caring? Less interested? Or just less of us?

[soi pig 0]

Can we organise some kind of swap for at least 2 months ?

 

We will be happy to look after 'old mate' in jail as long as Kevin Pietersen and Alistair fukn Cook replace him in jail in Thailand.

 

Regards Prime Minister Ranga.

[Basil B 46]

Interesting, when I found this story on Thai visa, it had been posted that day and had already gone to 9 pages. It was posted on the Secrets forum after this one, and is at 3 pages. Does that mean that Pattaya talk members are less caring? Less interested? Or just less of us?

 

The post has been locked on TV, (Surprise, Surprise considering Howard's commercial interest hook with TV).

 

Before his appointment he he had criticised and was a target for ridicule regarding his activities as a Tourist Police Volunteer and although I had an open mind on to the validity of the posts and wondered if it was a faction of "Police/Authority Haters" just knocking him for doing something positive.

 

Non the less Howard has been a controversial person for a few years now and was very surprised to see him appointed as the British Honorary Consul for Pattaya and really wonder if he was the best candidate for the job?

 

And least we not forget the lead article of "Pataya One News" first issue that was and certainly was intended to be alarmist (and even managed to make make a monkey out of few people at TV as well).

[Montydog 135]

PDN have covered it;

 

How it started

 

http://www.pattayadailynews.com/en/2010/11...ors-in-pattaya/

 

Follow Up & Police Reaction

 

http://www.pattayadailynews.com/en/2010/12...-crazed-briton/

 

If the first story is true I don’t have a whole heap of sympathy for him you get in trouble in a third world country you have to suffer the third world conditions.

[Basil B 46]

I think the photograph of the second report clearly shows some one who is grossly undernourished in a statement HM posted on TV which I post in entirety and unedited:

 

Unfortunately I am not able to get too involved in this thread but I would like to say that the initial story has errors, one of which is the length of time he was at Pattaya Police Station for.

 

The original piece states "He is reported to have been there for three months...."

 

He was incarcarated for just under two weeks during which time I visited 4 times, providing food, water and clothes and he was in the condition shown in the photo's when he arrived there.

 

I like Drummond's current blog entry, "A conspiracy of silence - a comment" which I am sure he issued out of sheer frustration that the story did not earn him any money. Is he trying to pressure me, the Embassy or the Foreign Office into speaking out on the case and revealing what actually happened?

 

There are more errors in the first two blog entries on this case but they are not worth highlighting.

 

I will no be able to post any more here.

 

Howard

 

I realise that this was probably a person with unsociable attitude, refuses offers of help and probably brought it on himself with substance abuse but obviously other people when informed of this gentleman's demise got him the help he needed in hours...

[lovedog100 1,372]

Back from hell - Pattaya horror story revisited

From Andrew Drummond

Bangkok, February 1 2011

 

He has made an incredible recovery after treatment at a psychiatric hospital in Bangkok. And remarkably it was a private British citizen who came to his aid after seeing pictures of Hewitt up on this website.

 

The British Embassy had seemingly written him off as either a ‘feckless’ Brit or perhaps as one Embassy employee apparently described him, unofficially and not without cause - ‘a nutter’.

 

But now his faculties have returned and Hewitt describes himself as ‘The luckiest man in the world’

 

And from a world in which he thought he had no cash he has emerged to a world where he is rich well beyond the imagination of his paranoiac alter ego with many millions of Thai baht in his bank account.

 

He puts his good fortune down to his saviour Tracy Cosgrave, of the charity Melissa Cosgrave Children’s Foundation, who rushed down to Pattaya Police station, had him dressed and fed and persuaded police to send him to a psychiatric hospital.

 

He is also deeply grateful to his landlord Bunchai Thaiurungrattana at his apartment in Pattaya 3rd Road, Soi 16, who safeguarded his belongings, cash and bank books, until he made his recovery.

 

For Richard Hewitt is not a Pattaya Brit who has squandered all his cash on booze, women, and drugs… Well, at least not yet.

 

He is in fact wealthy in his own right. A computer engineer, and graduate from the University of Sheffield, he has in fact lived in Thailand on and off for 12 years and says he has visited ‘and stayed in’ 56 provinces.

 

He was an English language teacher for Berlitz in Bangkok until four years ago when he quit after his father died and he received a large inheritance.

 

And it is that inheritance which may have been his undoing. That and perhaps moving to Pattaya with little sense of self control.

 

“I decided someone would have to make me a pretty good offer if I was ever going to work again,” he said, talking about his inheritance. “That was my downfall”.

 

Instead he decided to make most of his life in a city once described by Britain’s ‘Observer’ as a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah.

 

Hewitt, 47, from Brownhills, Birmingham, drank, took drugs, and frequented the city’s sex bars.

 

His last arrival date from Britain was in the third week of August last year. He resumed his normal lifestyle but insists he quit drugs, and drink by early October.

 

Nevertheless the damage appeared to have been done. Something somewhere cracked, and he has now only partial memory of what happened. Doctors put it down to paranoiac psychosis.

 

Cuffed to the cell bars, a water bottle for a pillow

 

He does remember dreaming about water, ‘Rain making’ and ‘Rain Dancing’, so much so that he turned on all the taps to flood his apartment and others in the block and he became delirious turning his room into an open toilet.

 

He scratched around looking for food oblivious of the US$2000, 200 pounds sterling, 3000 baht and bank books in his safe.

 

On November 13th, after complaints from residents, Tourist Police attended the scene, his room at the Baan Piyatham Condo in Pattaya 3rd Road, Soi 16. The British Honorary Consul was notified, but he referred them to the normal police.

 

Hewitt was first taken by police to Banglamuang Public hospital and it is after that, that he ended up in a police cell handcuffed to the bars off Pattaya Beach Road Soi 9 on a charge of overstaying his visa.

 

Now recovered , he has paid off all his hospital bills, engaged a lawyer, and will face a court which will decide how to punish him for overstaying his visa.

 

He says he cannot remember anything about what happened at Pattaya Soi 9 police station except that on one occasion another foreigner, an American, whom he described as ‘mad as a hatter’, banged him on the back of the head when he had his face against the bars.

 

He remembers being chained to the bars and said he did not care as he was ‘on the train to hell’.

 

He vaguely remembers being taken from the police station to the hospital.

 

“I remember thinking I do not want to go directly to hell. I told everyone on the train (He was in a police car) that I wanted to get off and walk through the land of the dead first. When I got to the hospital I was glad, because I thought they had kept their promise. That was my state of mine. I have only partial recall. It was like Bedlam but they were very good to me and they unchained me after just one day”.

 

Hewitt repeated his thanks to those people who came to his support such Tracy Cosgrave.

 

“I am so lucky there were good people around”.

 

After many years in Pattaya, he said, he had no friends. ‘I never met anyone worth keeping as a friend.”

 

He once had a local pub the ‘Dog’s Bollocks’ run by former ‘Chelsea Headhunter’ Chris Henderson, below left. But apparently fell out with the drinkers there too.

 

“What happens to me is in the hands of the Thai authorities. I have an Emirates ticket back to England and maybe my thoughts should now go to my elderly mum back home.”

 

Hewitt’s case perhaps highlights more than any other case the controversy over what help Britons can expect in these situations from their Embassy.

 

The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office insists that Hewitt received consular assistance prior to his admission to hospital in Bangkok. But the consular assistance appeared to have been limited to water and some food in the lock-up.

 

Stories that he overstayed his visa in the past and was in fact a drugs dealer appear to have no basis in truth. But he does have an ongoing health problem.

 

Britain’s Honorary Consul in Pattaya knew of the condition of Hewitt long before November 24th, the official date the British FCO say they heard of his plight at the police station.

 

His landlord Bunchai went both to the Consular office next to Pattaya Immigration and insists he also called the Embassy talking to a person called Jeffrey (phonetic). On both occasions staff expressed disinterest.

 

“They said they could do nothing,” said Bunchai. Bunchai was ‘caught on tape’ (1 min 29 secs) complaining that he had complained to the British Embassy. He said he had been to the Embassy office next to Immigration, on November 10th, but nobody would deal, with the case.

 

—————————————————————–

 

*Dog’s Bollocks: London slang for ‘the best’. Personally I prefer ‘the cat’s pyjamas’ or ‘the bee’s knees’. The Dog’s Bollocks in Pattaya was run by a Briton called Chris Henderson, best known as a one time leader of the Chelsea Headhunters, the football hooligans. Henderson wrote the book ‘Who wants it?’ (as in who wants a kicking). He was deported from Thailand last year with a serious foot infection (seriously).

 

—————————————————————–

 

COMMENT: Well I think I have said this already, but there is a moral issue here. I am sure that its written down somewhere that the British Embassy are not obliged to provide help in such cases, or that help is restricted to telling someone to get a lawyer and provide a list of those available. But I still find it beyond belief that Embassy representative could have done little else than provide a bit of food and water, and maybe clothes, as a sort of stop gap, while this man wasted away chained to a cell bar. The expression ‘nutter’ is one apparently used by an Embassy official in Soi Cowboy, Bangkok, a few days ago, who was complaining that the Embassy was unfairly attacked. That Hewitt had brought things on himself was clear. But these people need help too.

 

So thanks again to Tracy Cosgrave for helping this man out and monitoring the case while she was away in the UK for a month. Tracy is truly the dog’s, er, cat’s pyjamas.

[yogi100 1,925]

We often read articles on these forums denigrating Falang women. Hundreds of expats and holiday makers must have read the forums and been aware of the plight of this unfortunate fellow, the vast majority of us are obviously male and not one of us lifted a finger to help him, myself included.

 

Out of the tiny handful of female readers it took a Falang woman, Tracy Cosgrave to do something about it. It makes you think doesn't it. Even the Not fit for purpose British Embassy refused to help and dismissed him as a 'nutter'.

 

Well done Tracy.

[danboy 151]

Now that's a very happy ending!!!

 

A huge thank you must go to Tracy Cosgrave for riding to his rescue and also to his Thai landlord for safeguarding his (not inconsiderable) posessions!

 

I take my hat off to you both!!

[The Mook 105]

the feel-good story of this year!

[Basil B 46]

Noticed that the Honorary Consuls office in Jomtien was closed for a week, a few weeks back yet again, do hope it was for retraining.

[midlifecrisis 4,048]

Noticed that the Honorary Consuls office in Jomtien was closed for a week, a few weeks back yet again, do hope it was for retraining.

Amen, the poor man certainly deserved an active and frequent advicate.