|
Dubai Brit Facing Jail Sex on the Beach Expat publishing executive Michelle Palmer, 30, is facing up to six years in prison in Dubai, this week after allegedly being caught having sex on Jumeirah Beach, the best known 5 star resort in United Arab Emirates. Ms Palmer told the Sun she fears she and her unnamed British accused will be given a long jail term after being charged with ‘having sex outside marriage, indecent behaviour in public, being drunk in public and assaulting a police officer.’ "We are in so much trouble and my family and everybody are affected. Until someone is in this situation they could never know what it's like. It's bad - it's so, so bad,” she told reporters, "They (UAE authorities) are being pushed into a corner to make an example of us. I'm panicking,” she cried (The Sun). Following her arrest, a spokesman from travel agency Trailfinders claimed the Gulf state destination is being increasingly over-run by mass market holidaymakers, prompting increasing potential for misunderstandings between badly behaved Brits abroad and locals. “Dubai is quite chavvy. Everyone has been there,” the Trailfinders spokesman told the Times. “It is overdeveloped and colonised by Premier League footballers. But even they are beginning to move on.” Ms Palmer’s plight emerged just as Pauline Crowe, chief executive of Prisoners Abroad, issued a pointed warning to British tourists to be extra careful in an article which referred to Grooverider’s continuing incarceration, also in Dubai. "Flights are cheap, travel is fast - people don't put as much thought into their journeys abroad as they used to,” she told insurance company ‘Gottravelinsurance.com, “People used to do lots of planning and they did their research and worked out where they were going to go and what kind of culture and what they needed to do and all of that planning before hand,” she added. Prisoners Abroad also highlighted the dangers of travelling to America where new figures published last month revealed a record high prison population of almost 2.3milllion people for 2007, 280 of whom are British. One such Brit languishing in the US system is former New York party promoter Neville Wells who was jailed for 17 years to life in 2004 for killing mother of three Judith Gubernikoff, 33, in a drunken driving accident in Manhattan. The one time Limelight club promoter (who specialised in Gothic/ vampire parties) reportedly ‘’grovelled for mercy and wept openly in court' when sentenced, telling the court 'it seems like fate is so cruel, I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart,’ though received no mercy last month when judges considered his appeal. The New York judges rejected Wells’ claim that he was ‘too drunk at the time of his crash to form the mindset to act depraved’, the tern under which he was found guilty of murder. The "defendant's intoxication at the time of the collision, no matter how debilitating, is immaterial," the judges reportedly decreed, "Operation of a vehicle weighing in excess of two tons at a high rate of speed on city streets while highly intoxicated is the very epitome of depraved indifference to human life,” they added (Newsweek). http://tinyurl.com/3z2two (UK Foreign Office advice for Dubai: “Public displays of affection are frowned upon, and there have been several arrests for kissing in public. Sex outside of marriage is illegal . . . Swearing or making rude gestures is considered an obscene act and offenders can be prosecuted. It has been known for offenders to receive a six-month jail sentence for such an act . . .’) http://www.prisonersabroad.org.uk Article by Jonty Skrufff (Skrufff.com) Subscribe to Skrufff music newsletter at www.Skrufff.com
|
