Any sympathy for the British drug mule in Georgia?

[mids2019]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14723481/drug-mule-suspect-company-director-Chinese-retailers-Amazon.html

I was reading about this girl and actually do have a little symapthy. She is obviously vain, stupid, misguidedly ambitious but I don't know whether she is real player in the drug trade and has probably been groomed into carrying drugs by men promising her the earth.

The penalties for drug smuggling are understandably harsh on Georgia but should the UK try and get her to serve a sentence in the UK?

A fine career choice there!

You can have sympathy but at the same time agree with the punishment.

Why are some people on here insisting on calling her a young girl?

She's not a "girl" and most certainly not a "young girl".

If this was an 18yo male would you be calling him a "young boy"?

I had a friend a long time ago who developed schizophrenia from smoking dope and ended up committing suicide while high, thinking he could fly as he jumped off the top of a multi-storey car park. It's not the soft drug some people think it is.

And can we please stop with the armchair ADHD diagnosis and calling her a "moron" - it's really offensive.

I agree, there's a lot of infantilising on here. Some people insisting she's not really an adult.

I do not sympathise at all.

When I went to Moscow with a friend, she had family in Kiev and was given a bad time where ever she went. On the way back an American woman in a fur coat said she was part of CNN and would we take some video footage through. Er no!

Awful, I remember a case of a young man who was said to have developed some mental health issues from cannabis/weed and jumped off the balcony in Stratford Westfield shopping centre onto one of the lower floors. He landed on a young woman and paralysed her.

Wow?!

You keep justifying her actions by ‘doing silly things’

NO, what she did was ILLEGAL. She needs to be punished, otherwise people will continue to take these risks.

I have an 18 year old. We discussed this and her perspective was to be highly insulted that people would think someone of her age wouldn’t know not to smuggle. DD is gay, knows which countries her sexuality would be considered illegal and wouldn’t go there ‘on principle’.

Those that are saying she’s young and doesn’t know better….. what about people who have children at 18. If they neglect their baby do we just say “oh well, they’re young”. No, we would not, we would expect them to educate themselves enough to become an acceptable parent.

I do feel sympathy for her. As a middle aged woman I can see that she’s just thrown away at least a part of a life. What a shame and totally unavoidable. The fact she was enticed in by greed and of her own doing is awful and horrendous for her family. However, despite my sympathy I still believe she needs to face the consequences.

This is massively ignorant. The Foreign Office doesn’t have the ability to force other countries to change their rules for British nationals or to ‘fix’ punishments awarded by foreign courts. Whether we agree with the judgements legally or morally is irrelevant. Many people find this to their detriment. In the same way, UK courts would not be swayed by another country’s intervention and rightly so. The Foreign Office can signpost to local legal representatives and translators. They can advocate for humane treatment. They can’t insist that British nationals aren’t punished for committing crimes abroad.

The case of the 18 year old in Dubai is an absolute travesty but the person responsible is the girl’s vindictive mother.

'I have an 18 year old. We discussed this and her perspective was to be highly insulted that people would think someone of her age wouldn’t know not to smuggle'

I have a 20yr old and while they wouldn't smuggle they aren't stupid and they understand everyone is different and don't all have the same values and common sense.

What this girl did was wrong obviously but the people who gave her the drugs and were planned to receive them are where the focus should be.

Yes she will have to face the consequences but perspective is needed regarding her role in the drugs trade.

No, the focus is on this young woman because she was caught in criminal activity.

What's more she absolutely RELISHED her criminality as evidenced by her own SM posts before she got caught!

This has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever seen - posting pics of wads of money and talk of being a criminal on the run making loads of money... she'll have plenty of time to regret those posts now.

This!

She clearly knew what she was doing. That removes any potential sympathies I might have had for her.

As @Springadorable says:
She hasn't been tricked here - she sold her passport details, got a taste for easy money, and decided she liked the high life and tried to fly kilos of drugs for a bigger pay cheque
She knew exactly what she was doing, bragged on social media about being Bonnie and Clyde and clearly thought her adoring followers would make her famous.
She deserves everything that comes, drugs cause untold misery and death.

As a former nurse , I find it irritating to have this person associated with the nursing profession.

@lowhangingi couldn’t believe it when I read it. Two total extremes for the same crime. Maybe The two other girls should’ve smuggled into the UK as they’d be punishment free then.
we have people in prison for posting tweets ( abhorrent in content and I in no way condone them) but if they are behind bars for that why isn’t this drug smuggler

That's not "for perspective". That woman was tried under UK law. She had already served 3 months and was given a suspended sentence.
This woman under discussion is being tried under Georgian law.

That perspective is irrelevant. It applies to a different justice system, the UK.

The offence occurred in Georgia. That’s why their laws are relevant.

Other jurisdictions even have the death penalty for drug trafficking!!

Different countries different rules - surely that’s easy to comprehend?

Maybe the UK needs tougher rules to properly deter people from smuggling drugs?

The woman in that link smuggled to the UK, not to Georgia.

If she has been caught in Thailand she’d be facing the death penalty, so she’s arguably (you know, for perspective) getting off comparatively lightly under Georgian law.

In two completely different countries.

Including the jurisdiction she transited through. I assume the drugs have been in her luggage since departure so she is incredibly lucky she didn’t get stopped until Georgia.