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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To not feel any sympathy for drug-smuggling women?

592 replies

DarceyBissell · 12/08/2013 17:42

Just that really. Two young women facing 25 years in a Peruvian jail for trying to smuggle 11kg of cocaine. Saw they described as 'vulnerable' in one paper. Hardly. Greedy and stupid though.

OP posts:

noddyholder · 14/08/2013 18:05

Agree theodora never even thought about gender. They are kids and the parents must be distraught.

Original poster

DarceyBissell · 14/08/2013 18:09

I thought AIBU was all about being judgemental.

OP posts:

sweetestcup · 14/08/2013 20:51

Saw a video where Melissa states she didn't know what they were carrying - which contradicts what they said to the Daily Mirror reporter who interviewed them. What in the name did she think she was trying to smuggle that allegedly involved "shady South American looking men" taking them hostage at gunpoint in Spain, threatening their lives and their families lives, forcing them to fly round the world then...

theodorakisses · 15/08/2013 17:24

Course they are guilty, of course they knew what they were doing but who didn't think they were invincible in their teens? Most of us took risks and did stupid things, doesnt mean that the people who exploited them were not to blame. If they were arrested eastern European prostitutes you would be
angry

TabithaStephens · 15/08/2013 17:42

I don't think I'd have been stupid enough to try to smuggle drugs through an airport as a teen.

CarpeVinum · 15/08/2013 17:43

I didn't used to have any sympathy.

But then an aquaintnence living in the same guesthouse as me was caught at the airport in Bangkok.

I went to see her a few times, until the guards wouldn't let me in anymore, becuase in many prisons aborad you really are at the mercy of visitors availablily to turn up and hand in stuff for you.

And I ended up with buckets of sympathy. Becuase what she was going through I wouldn't wish on anybody.

It's easy behind a computer screen. But when you actually see the human suffering right up in your face it's much harder to take a hard and line and think, tough, don't fo the crime if you can't do the time.

PigOnStilts · 17/08/2013 23:32

Well....I think totally guilty and I do t understand WHY I'm so unsympathetic as I'm not normally heartless. At all. But they just strike me as a pair of liars.

cory · 17/08/2013 23:39

"I would rather save my sympathy for the victims of drugs and their families"

Do we know they are not one and the same?

Or if not, that the trickery and coercion used to get these girls into smuggling was any less than that used to get drug users into trying drugs: after all, don't they too know what they are getting into?

PeriodMath · 17/08/2013 23:53

I don't have any sympathy. I feel sorry for their parents, they must be distraught. But those girls knew exactly what they were doing IMO, they took a chance, figured they'd get away with it, because most drugs mules do.

The way they are being held in a cell together is bizarre however. Why on earth haven't they been separated? And all the interaction with the media. As for the father's visit with a bloody birthday cake - wtf was that all about? It's all seeming a bit farcical.

If found guilty, I hope they serve their time in Peru - no justification whatsoever for bringing them back here.

They are 20 yrs old - NOT little girls.

nkf · 21/08/2013 10:13

I feel sympathy because they are in an awful situation. But I suspect it will turn out that they were fools rather than victims.

cheerfulweatherforthewedding · 21/08/2013 10:19

They have been rather foolish.

I don't believe them, and doubt anybody else will. I think they could have hazarded a guess as to what they were carrying if they were forced into it at gunpoint.

Viviennemary · 21/08/2013 11:28

I don't agree with rather foolish. Smuggling £1.5m worth of a class A drug is a bit more than rather foolish. I think it's bad form to sanitise this kind of crime which the authorities are trying to stop. If those two are treated leniently what kind of message will that send out to young people tempted to do the very same thing in the future. Well we might get away with it and we will get loads of money or we might get caught and then spend a few weeks in prison before the cavalry rescue us.

cheerfulweatherforthewedding · 21/08/2013 11:36

Yes you're right, and I was putting it very mildly. And I suspect, hope, they won't be treated leniently.

Are they likely to get bail? I don't know if there's been an update on that.

Viviennemary · 21/08/2013 11:41

Sorry cheerful, I didn't mean to sound sharp. But it would annoy me if they get away with it because I don't really believe their story as it doesn't add up. I got carried away as I hate the damage drugs do!

Lilacroses · 21/08/2013 11:41

It is hard to imagine getting into these crazy situations but I think it sounds like these girls got in too deep before they quite realised what was happening and then couldn't extricate themselves. Of course they were foolish in a way but as a mother I can't help but imagine how I'd feel if that was my child.

We do all make mistakes, I travelled alot as a young person and was approached once by an incredibly charismatic man who befriended me and tried to persuade me to travel on with him. I trusted my instinct and said no (to this day I'm sure he was up to something) but I can see how some people might fall prey to this and then realise too late that they're up to their necks.

Lilacroses · 21/08/2013 11:44

Sorry I do realise that calling them foolish sounds like I'm minimising the crime. I do think it's terrible I just don:t think most young people who've never been in trouble before would do this of their own accord.

Jinsei · 21/08/2013 12:02

I remember dimly what being young was like and I would have been naive and foolish. I might have ended up in a prison given the wrong circumstances

See, I remember being 18/19 in south east Asia, in a country that has very harsh drug laws. I met some other British teenagers who were boasting about how they had illegally obtained some weed. All I can remember thinking was how bloody stupid they were. Age is really no excuse, and these girls - if they knew what they were doing - were old enough to know better.

That said, we don't know the full facts yet, and so I would prefer to reserve judgement. I do feel an element of sympathy for them even if they did know what they were doing, as we are all fallible and they will certainly pay for what they have done. However, I have lost friends to drugs, and feel much greater sympathy for the loved ones of those who use them - especially the two beautiful little boys of a couple I used to know who were orphaned by their parents' foolishness. :(

Br0na · 21/08/2013 12:06

I feel sorry for them. The punishment should fit the crime and I don't think it's fair that they will face 30 years in a Peruvian jail, when if they'd committed the same crime in Europe they'd get about 2 years.

I'd like to think I'd have had the brains to have said no to this when I was 20, but I'm not sure. If it had been put to me convincingly by somebody pushy, I don't know, I might have risked it. And if I had, I'd still be in a Peruvian jail right now.

Br0na · 21/08/2013 12:07

What I mean is if they'd been caught in Madrid, not Lima, what would the stretch in the klink be? not 25 years anyway.

Br0na · 21/08/2013 12:12

ps, would have NO problem with them serving about two years in a Northern Irish, Scottish or Madrid prison even. they committed a crime I realise that. Punishments should be structured, expected, logical... we'd tell our children that!

If you think they should lose the bulk of their adult lives to this mistake made at twenty then you're very harsh imo.

Jinsei · 21/08/2013 12:13

But Br0na, the sentences will obviously differ according to where you get caught. Who should get to decide what is reasonable in these cases?

KissMeHardy · 21/08/2013 12:18

Bangkok Hilton (the film) should be made compulsory viewing for all over 15s IMO.

Br0na · 21/08/2013 12:18

WEll, obviously the Peruvians get to decide. But this thread is about whether or not posters feel any sympathy for them, and I do.

They don't have the opportunity to live and learn from their huge mistake. Their crime won't be punished with an 18 month prison sentence they can try to put behind them. They will lose their adult lives to this. They will be at risk of sexual assualt from the guards, bullying from more streetwise hardened criminals, isolated from their family and friends, disconnected from those around them, they will feel an enormous about of humiliation because this is so public, they will feel the weight of what their parents have lost.

This one incident will irrevocably change their entire lives and their parents have lost, so, I can feel a lot of sympathy for them despite feeling that they should serve about 2 years in a uk klink.

Jinsei · 21/08/2013 12:22

Hmm, I feel a bit sorry for them as well, and I hope that they get a fair trial. However, if they are guilty, I don't think two years would be enough.

Drug smuggling is not a victimless crime. Cocaine destroys lives. I think it's right that the sentencing should reflect this.

Br0na · 21/08/2013 12:24

Carpevinum yes, that's it. I want them to be punished, reasonably by a justice system we can trust (up to a point) but how could anybody sane wish this indefinite (almost) level of extreme suffering, abuse, and loneliness on two 20 year olds?

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