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PASSPORT TO HELL
Copyright © Terry Daniels, 2013
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, nor transmitted, nor translated into a machine language, without the written permission of the publishers.
The right of Terry Daniels to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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DISCLAIMER
The information and views expressed in this book are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Summersdale Publishers Ltd.
Lyric from 'Looking Out My Window' by the Rat Pack used with permission.
All images used with permission.
I am dedicating this book to my mum because without her, God only knows where I'd be today. She offered her tireless love and support and never gave up on me. She is my Wonder Mum. I would also like to dedicate it to my dad. I hope he's proud of me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
During her time inside, Terry Daniels' story was featured in The Mirror, The Sun, the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph. She appeared on every major news programme. Nowadays her life is a lot less exciting, which is exactly how she likes it. She undertakes charity work on behalf of Fair Trials International and Prisoners Abroad, and volunteers with ex-offenders and drug abusers.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my sister, who was my best pen pal whilst I was in prison, who is my best friend and who has put up with so much and still loves me; everyone at Prisoners Abroad, everyone at Fair Trials, John Bercow, who was there from start to finish and never gave up, my MEP James Elles, all my media supporters (Tom Walton, Nikki Jenkins, Alex Forest and Amanda Walton, who has given me her continuous support), Bev (my angel in Spain); all the people who wrote letters of support for my pardon (without you I never would have got it), SMART and the Drug and Alcohol Team for their support in my recovery and help in preparing me for my release from jail; my solicitors in England and Northern Ireland, Mari Luz in Spain for believing in me and taking on the case for my pardon; everyone who supported me on my release and gave me a chance (you know who you are and I'll never forget this), friends and family who wrote to me while I was inside (your letters were a great comfort), Ellen, who always appeared when Mum and I needed her, our guardian angel Siv Tunnicliffe for her prayers and support, Linda for being Linda; a big thanks to all my girls at Trendz and also for Jamie Scott for my photos; Danny for always listening even when I bored him to tears, Sabine Zanker, who was not just my legal representative but also became a very close friend, Summersdale for publishing my book and making this all happen and finally to my ghost writer, who took the story on and made my dreams come true… and boy it's some story!
Some of the names of individuals included in this book have been changed to protect their identities. The names of nightclubs have also been changed for legal reasons.
CONTENTS
Foreword
'Thoughts of Freedom'
1 The Experimental Years
2 Living the Dream
3 Back to Tenerife
4 The Holiday from Hell
5 Salto del Negro
6 Cocaine on the Brain
7 My Day in Court
8 The Final Countdown
9 Terry the Fugitive
10 Another Escape
11 Terry the Terrorist
12 Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire
13 A Sense of Déjà Vu
14 Arrested Again
15 The Extradition
16 Life in Soto Del Real
17 Topas
18 Ups and Downs
19 Return to the Asylum
20 Return to Sunny England
21 Murder at Hogwarts
22 Life on License
Photo Appendix
FOREWORD
Reading this book made my own experiences feel like a stroll in the woods by comparison. In 1993 I was convicted and sent to a Thai prison for attempting to smuggle 90 grams of heroin through Bangkok airport. I was guilty and deserved my sentence, and I knew I had to face the consequences – somehow. Terry was just a young girl, living life to the full and oblivious to the dangers around her. She got caught up in someone else's misdeeds and paid a harsh price for being with the wrong people at the wrong time.
Being convicted and imprisoned for a crime I had committed was bad enough; being wrongly condemned has always been my worst nightmare. I have met women who have been convicted of crimes they have not committed; I have seen how the injustice eats away at them, eroding them of all interests, except the drive to prove their innocence. Guilty people tend to accept their punishments and move on. The innocent do not. After several years in prison it is easy to spot who is innocent.
When I was arrested in Thailand a life sentence was 99.9 years, worse than the death penalty. The best sentence I could hope for was 25 years. In the beginning I felt as though I had no choice but to let go of my life, to forget my family and friends and hope that they would forget me. Terry, knowing in her heart that she did not deserve the sentence she had received, chose to fight from the very beginning, never letting go of her family and the dream of the freedom that was rightfully hers. She suffered greatly in her fight. The fact that she got through it with her sanity intact is an outstanding testament to her strength and something worthy of great admiration.
For anyone going off to warmer climes to party in the sun and to indulge in a little reckless behaviour, Terry's story should be taken as a warning. It reveals the terrible hidden dangers behind the beach-revelling, carefree life abroad that so many young people crave. I hope that it serves to remind everyone who reads it that it's the people you love, and who love you, that really make life worth living.
Sandra Gregory, 2013
'Thoughts of Freedom' by Terry Daniels
At the moment I may be thinking
Of how things used to be,
Before these trying times
That have brought such misery
But please stop and think a while
About all that I have learned,
Of just how far I've travelled
And all the corners I have turned,
So always try to remember
That this time won't always be,
For then I may look forward
To when I'm home safe and free.
Chapter 1
THE EXPERIMENTAL YEARS
'¿Qué es esto? ¿Qué es esto? ¡Es cocaína! ¿A quién pertenece?'
I couldn't spe
ak a word of Spanish but understood the word 'cocaína' and knew that I was in a lot of trouble. Thick, white clouds of coke billowed around the room as the heavily built Guardia Civil officers tore apart my travel companion's suitcase. I should have been paralysed with fear but it didn't seem real to me. What the hell was going on?
'She's got nothing to do with this,' yelled Antonio as one of the officers thrust the cold, steel nozzle of a gun against my head. 'They're my drugs. She doesn't know a thing; you might as well let her go.'
'No,' the officer replied. 'She stay.'
In spite of all the trouble they had caused, the drugs were still calling out to me. In the midst of everything that was going on, I looked at the piles of cocaine that were spread across the floor and my mouth began to water. Some of it had fallen into a nice, big, fat line and I was mesmerised by it and wished that I could snort it up.
'Let her go,' Antonio repeated. 'She didn't know.'
He was telling the truth as well. Although I was no stranger to cocaine, the last thing that had been going through my mind during my holiday to Brazil was the possibility that he would try to smuggle 4 kilos of the stuff back across to Spain. It was like an episode of Banged Up Abroad. But how had I got myself into this situation in the first place? I was only twenty-three, I had a drink and drug problem and I had travelled overseas with one of the slimiest, most untrustworthy people I knew. Where had it all gone wrong?
My early years were a million miles away from the world of hedonistic, cocaine-filled excess that I eventually entered into. I was born in Aylesbury, the county town of Buckinghamshire and grew up in the tiny, rural village of Wingrave, which is your typical slice of idyllic English countryside. The village is surrounded by lush, green fields and has very little crime. It is hardly the type of place that you would expect somebody who has been accused of smuggling a million pounds' worth of cocaine to have been brought up in.
Our house was amongst the first council houses to be built in Wingrave and my parents bought it straightaway. It was a little on the cramped side, but apart from that, it was perfect. We lived on a quiet, relatively trouble-free estate and there were plenty of other children nearby for me to play with. My early surroundings were a far cry from the vice-filled den of iniquity where I would end up living in the months leading up to my arrest.
I was always well behaved as a child and did well at school. I didn't pass my eleven-plus exams but the teachers at Wing County Secondary School, the secondary modern that I attended, coached me through my GCSEs and gave me the attention that I needed to succeed. If I had gone to the local grammar school they would have left me at the back of the class, but as it was, I ended up with nine passes. Aylesbury College, where I did my A levels, wasn't quite as disciplined. I left with two A levels, but could have done a lot better if I had stayed on at Wing County.
I very rarely got into any trouble during my school days, although I started smoking at age twelve. My cousin plied me with cigarettes whenever she came round and I would secretly light up a fag whenever my mum and dad were out. It was all fun and games until my dad caught me taking a drag a few years down the line. He was furious. I think he was secretly devastated that his little girl was gradually losing her innocence and becoming a woman. My mum says she has never seen him as angry as he was that day.
Although I had to hide the fact that I smoked from my parents, drinking was a different matter. My dad's family are Irish and alcohol is a big part of the culture. I was never told that boozing was wrong, although I was never taught that it was a particularly clever thing to do either.
The first time I got drunk was during an exchange trip to France. Wingrave is twinned with La Bouëxière in Brittany and every year the village would arrange for either a French family to come and stay here or a family from Wingrave to travel over there. When our family was chosen to visit Brittany, I decided to single-handedly polish off two bottles of wine and my mum found me heaving my guts up in a forest close to where we were staying. She was mortified.
'Let's get you inside and get you sorted out,' she told me, slapping me around the face to try and sober me up.
Our hosts thought it was hilarious that I was so horribly out of it, but my parents didn't share in their amusement. They were disappointed with my behaviour, but not because I had consumed alcohol. They were more annoyed with me for getting drunk whilst we were relying on somebody else's hospitality. Drinking was regarded as something that I would inevitably do at one point or another. They didn't see it as anywhere near as dirty a habit as smoking.
I may have smoked the occasional cigarette and drunk the odd alcoholic drink but I was still a good kid. I had respect for authority and very rarely fell foul of the law. Funnily enough, I even wanted to be a copper at one point. I was a massive Cagney and Lacey fan, which led me to joining the police cadets in the hope that I would one day be able to follow in my heroines' footsteps.
I wanted to be a girl-in-blue right up until I was seventeen when I had my first encounter with a real-life policewoman. A rude, young, female officer came to issue me with a warning after I got into a fight with my next-door neighbour and I thought, 'OK, I could never be like you. You're horrible.' She had very aggressive, authoritarian body language and seemed more concerned with asserting her dominance over me than she was about upholding the law. It was a case of, 'Look at me; I'm in a uniform. I'm going to try and frighten you.'
Apart from that one unfortunate blip, my teenage years were relatively hassle-free. My parents both had full-time jobs, I always had plenty of friends and my folks grafted hard all year so that the family could afford an annual holiday to the Isle of Wight. Our vacations on the island were the highlight of our year. We loved it there. The scenery was beautiful and the weather was a lot hotter than it is on the mainland. Dad wasn't one for change so we always stayed in Ventnor, a large seaside resort on the south coast of the island. We went there so many times, that we ended up in the background of a postcard, which we all thought was hilarious.
The Isle of Wight became a home away from home. We had our own beach hut and spent hour upon hour bronzing ourselves on the sandy beach. It was a magical place and thinking about it conjures up a lot of happy memories.
When I was fifteen, my family decided that it would be cheaper to go abroad. I was sad that we were changing our holiday destination but at the same time excited at the prospect of going somewhere hotter.
'We're off to Tenerife,' my dad announced.
It sounded good to me. As long as there was sun, sea and sand, I would enjoy every single minute of it.
Tenerife was everything the Isle of Wight had been, plus more. It was twice as hot, there was a swimming pool and a beach and all the women looked super-glamorous. I was immediately taken with it. The rest of the family were equally enamoured with the place. My dad loved going for strolls in the countryside and there were plenty of scenic walks. The only downside was the fact that we were staying at an all-inclusive hotel and the catering wasn't all that good. Dad was quite fussy with his food so we spent a lot of time eating out.
Tenerife has a lively nightlife and our hotel was close to Veronicas Strip, a busy 200-metre stretch of clubs and pubs. The strip was patrolled by an army of PR girls, whose job it was to drag passers-by into the bars and persuade them to spend their cash. One of the girls managed to coax us into a cheesy-looking nightclub called Mrs G's and it soon became our regular hangout. It was small and crowded but there was a fun, holiday atmosphere and we went back time and time again.
The following year, we returned to Tenerife and headed straight for Mrs G's. As I said, my dad was never big on change and once he'd found somewhere that he liked, he would usually keep going back. We soon got to know the bar staff and I can remember thinking that they had a cushy little number going on. Working on an island that was as beautiful as that barely constituted work. It was as if they were being paid for taking one long holiday in the sun.
'I could start off as a PR girl and work my
way up to a bar job, like theirs,' I thought to myself.
PR work isn't the best job in the world but I figured it would be worth it once I got a job in a club. It was definitely food for thought.
The staff at Mrs G's told us about a block of self-catering apartments called The Optimist in Playa de las Americas, which were ideal for us because Dad was fed up with having to pay for food that nobody wanted to eat. The Optimist was the missing piece of the puzzle. Now our holiday was complete.
After a couple of years of visiting the island, I really got to know the place and made up my mind that I was going to move there at some point in the not-too-distant future. I knew that I was still too young to live abroad, but made a mental note that it was something that I had to do when I got a little bit older. For now, I would just have to make do with holidaying there once a year.
Whenever I got a moment to myself, I would dream of life in Tenerife. It was exotic, it was glamorous and there were plenty of opportunities for adventure; how could rainy, old England ever even hope to compete with a place like that? What was there to do over here that could possibly compare to the levels of excitement that were to be found in Playa de las Americas?
Passport To Hell: How I Survived Sadistic Prison Guards and Hardened Criminals in Spain's Toughest Prisons Page 1
