Update: Friday, 21st July 2000. Today Sandra was released from prison having been given a pardon by the King of Thailand. God bless him and anybody in our own government that helped to bring this about. It was slow in coming but everyone can be joyful that the far too harsh punishment given to Sandra has at last come to an end and that she and her family can now rebuild their lives. Fantastic news!
A sentence way out of line
By Ken Norman (posted 1998)
In September 1998 Tommy (or Sean) Adams and two of his lieutenants, belonging to Britain’s “most feared gang of drug dealers and hit men”, and believed to be above the law, were given “long sentences” according to Paul Lashmar, feature writer in the Independent.
Adams received seven-and-a-half years imprisonment for large-scale importation of cannabis. “By large-scale I mean tonnes, thousands of kilograms,” said the prosecutor. “By wholesale, I mean supplying dealers with 50-100 kilograms at a time.”
In contrast, Sandra Gregory is serving a 22-year sentence, which was begun six years ago in Bangkok jail, for attempting to carry to Britain 89 grams of heroin (the weight of a small tube of toothpaste - 3oz).
She was first transferred to Holloway and then H-wing at Durham, the most secure women’s prison in Britain. Her parents live at Inverurie, in Aberdeenshire. It must be an impossible journey to visit her (said Ken Norman in 1998).
If she and Adams both receive full remission, he (starting five-and-a-half years later) can be out nearly two years before her. If neither gets remission she will rot for another nine years after he is back in business.
Sandra is no criminal, just a rather nice young woman, travelling in the East for experience, running out of money, desperate to get home, and she was duped by an acquaintance. Thai police had been tipped off by Britain that he was a drug-carrier. Both were arrested; he walked free.
If Foreign Secretary Robin Cook cared to make a polite request to the King of Thailand for pardon or remission she could be freed within weeks. The Foreign Office reply was: "We should not compare the sentence given by the Thai court with the sentence Miss Gregory would have received if she had committed the offence in this country."
Why on earth not? She is a British woman serving the balance of her sentence in Britain at the taxpayers’ expense.
Sandra's lawyer, Khun Puttri Kuvandonda, Siam Legal Associates Ltd, Suite 304, Sathaporn Building, 3rd Floor, Bangrak, Bangkok 10500, Thailand (Fax No. 006622368791) is preparing a document package forming a request for pardon.
Mr Fraser Kemp MP is preparing a polite request to His Majesty King Bumiphol Adulyode of Thailand to graciously grant a pardon or reduction of sentence if MPs will sign it.
“I really am truly sorry for my mistake, but nobody seems to care,” she wrote on September 15 1998. “Our government are not very forgiving, to say the least. Prison is a very lonely place to be, and to know that someone outside cares is a great support.”
Posted June 2000
The following is part of an article in
The guardian dated Tuesday February 8th, 2000
by Emily Barr.
Photograph by Sean Dempsey.
After four or eight years, depending on the length of the sentence, Thai authorities
allow prisoners to transfer to a jail in their home country. US and Australian prisoners
are put on parole almost immediately. British law, however, states that all prisoners
must serve half their remaining sentence, which given the draconian nature of sentences
imposed in Thailand, often means a great many years.
Sandra Gregory, a teacher from
Yorkshire sentenced to 22 years in 1993, chose to take that route, returning to Britain
after four years at Bang Kwang prison. Last weekend her supporters held a candlelight
vigil outside Downing street to mark the start of her eighth year of incarceration.
But despite her parents high profile campaign for her pardon, she is unlikely to
be eligible for parole until December 2003. Gregory, 34, came home almost three years
ago. Until recently she was imprisoned in Durham prison, alongside Rosemary West.
She is now in Cookham Wood, in Kent. “She's not in a good way” says her mother, Doreen.
The Gregorys describe Sandra's continued incarceration as a huge waste of everybody's
lives.
Under British law her crime would have merited a four year sentence. Doreen
Gregory points to a recent case where a couple received sentences a third of the
length of Sandra's for smuggling 30,000 times the amount of heroin. The British government,
however, is declining to write a letter to Thai authorities supporting their call
for an appeal. Sources within the foreign office suggest that a reform of the law,
to bring it into line with that of the US and Australia, might be creeping on to
the agenda. Officially however the idea is not entertained. The last thing the government
wants is to be seen as soft on drug offenders. Prisoners and their relatives argue
that they have been punished many times over and that they are no danger to society.
www.slimeylimeyjustice.org