to hope the Foreign Office don't waste any time on Laura Plummer...

[PiffleandWiffle]

She was stupid enough to smuggle drugs into a country against their laws, got caught & got sentenced.

BBC Link

Cue the predictable wailing & cries of "it's not fair" from the family!

Personally, I'd rather the Foreign Office spent it's time trying to help people who are genuinely in trouble abroad rather than idiots drug smugglers....

I discussed this with friends yesterday. One is a Lawyer who has defended in drugs cases.

As specialsubject suggests “She pops to Egypt every few months to see her sex partner, and takes drugs over for him on request. At 33 she ought to have more sense.”

Lawyer friend suggested she might be funding her trip by drug sales. If husband has been indiscreet with his network, there may well have been a jealous tip-off from a competitor.

I wouldn’t wish a three year sentence in an Egyptian prison on her, but she is probably going to serve at least half of it. I hope this discourages others and acts as a warning to be sure about rules covering medicines abroad. Lawyer, by the way, know people who use Tramadol recreationally. I don’t and assume now that I live a sheltered life.

I don't think it is a racist angle to deplore the prison conditions in Egypt and to believe that one of our citizens should be given FO assistance. The OP suggests she shouldn't.

She should get the help she's entitled to as a citizen.
I don't feel sorry for her but as a citizen of a country she is entitled to its support, stupid moron or not.

Your lawyer friend needs to read up more. The cost of the drugs , by Egyptian street rates came to way less than half the cost of her flight.

.. and I don't think anyone is suggesting that she was due to profit.

In addition, they believe (her lawyers are unsure which speaks volumes!) that she hasn't been convicted of smuggling but possession, so PPs should stop using that particularly emotive word.

I personally had to wean myself off tramadol eventually because I was becoming too used to the dose i was on

Yes but you are one person and an example of why it needs to be supervised and part of a long term plan. My pain specialist and pain clinic struggle the most with people in long term pain, which heavily restricts their lives, because the scare stories result in patients fearing them and non specialist doctors being afraid to prescribe them.

My GP has told me always to see him for prescription reviews rather than locums because despite my extensive history being there on record, less experienced/pain knowledgeable doctors are afraid to prescribe effective pain relief. They will happily prescribe non pain relief prescriptions for medication with much more risky side effects.

The stories distort an accurate risk picture. If I hadn't been lucky in getting a good GP and a good pain consultant I'd be at home dependent on benefits instead of paying gobloads of tax into the system. I'd also be in much worse chronic pain.

Astrid the coverage I saw hardly mentioned the woman's culpability. It concentrated very much on Egypt's 'complicated' legal system, the boyfriend's involvement and pretty much implied that Egypt was a dangerous, corrupt county desperate to jail white women.

Yep, there's always this huge element of the subconscious racism that's so obvious in the British thinking.
It was obvious in the MMC case, where the Portuguese police were all shite and only the Scotland Yard experts would do.
Same here. It's the Egyptian authorities who are bad, not a drug dealing little skank.

"Why do you put in the qualifier, "and have evidence that she did not carry in the drugs"?"

Because I thought it was a strict liability offence in Egypt.. Very happy to be corrected.. Sorry, everyone.

I'm also assuming that all mitigating factors had already been taken into account when handing down a distinctly lenient sentence. Apologies again if that assumption is wrong.

I do feel sorry for her but she has been bloody stupid.

I feel more sympathy for her family.

I don't think the FCI should intervene.

Thanks for that TFMDV yes I see what you mean now, and I completely agree with the last bit about it being anyone brown's fault but hers.

Astrid the coverage I saw hardly mentioned the woman's culpability. It concentrated very much on Egypt's 'complicated' legal system, the boyfriend's involvement and pretty much implied that Egypt was a dangerous, corrupt county desperate to jail white women.

Well it would not be the first time public opinion attempted to affect court proceedings.

But regardless of any speech from any MP, Egypt has signed the Convention. A fair trial requires certain things. Not knowing very much about Egyptian criminal law, I have no idea whether this trial was fair or not.

The woman's lawyer seems to feel there is reason for appeal.

Culpability of the accused does not absolve Egyptian courts from the requirement to conduct fair trails.

Is there a reliable master-list by destination of prohibited (even with prescription) drugs floating around in cyber-space anywhere?

I ask because I need daily prescription-only meds. It’s a cancer drug for which there is no recreational market whatsoever, so not worried about carrying that one. But if I ever needed painkillers alongside, it would be good to know where there are restrictions and where there are outright bans

From what I've read the colleague who legitimately had a prescription for Tramadol and supposedly gave Laura their unused tablets has refused to corroborate that claim, refused to make a statement to that effect for the Egyptian Court and refused to attend the Court on her behalf. This could be because they know that what they did was illegal in this country and they are concerned about the impact on them.

Her Egyptian 'husband' did appear in court and state he had a back injury and that the tablets were for him. It has not been confirmed whether or not he knew that Laura was bringing the tablets for him, if he did know, why didn't he warn her? There are parts of this story that just don't add up.

Will Laura be deported at the end of her sentence and refused entry to Egypt thereafter? If so, where does this leave her 'marriage' to her Egyptian husband?

Her family comes across as unrepentant and ignorant as she is.

Because I thought it was a strict liability offence in Egypt.. Very happy to be corrected.. Sorry, everyone.

I'm also assuming that all mitigating factors had already been taken into account when handing down a distinctly lenient sentence. Apologies again if that assumption is wrong.

If you know anything, you know more than me. Napoleon or Justinian or something.

My point is simply that if there was a problem with the trial, and there is within the Egyptian legal system a way to appeal, then the Foreign Office should help. Regardless of whether she did it or not.

The requirement for fair trial comes first, in other words.

iVampire - your best bet is to check with the FCO before you travel. Their website has lots of advice by country.

iVampire - your best bet is to check with the FCO before you travel. Their website has lots of advice by country.

Apparently, it did not have this particular drug on the list for Egypt.

just because uk systems are lax doesn't mean theirs are too strict

This ^^ I loathe the way some Egyptian immigration staff behave, especially around foreign women, but still wish the UK was more rigorous in applying our laws to incomers, instead of constantly making allowances for "cultural misunderstandings"

I don't believe this woman was ignorant about what she was doing, but even if she was, ignorance is no excuse (and neither is "just being daft" as her family irritatingly keep insisting)

I’ll pass on the need to read up piggywaspushed.

What is the street price of these drugs? Something gets into an article and gets copied as if it is gospel. An earlier Economist article puts it as fluctuating between $0.15 and $3 a capsule.

Interesting final comment RedDogsBeg. Her relationship is not going to last if they are never going to be together.

I was at the BBC reporting of his story yesterday which stated that Laura Plummer was convicted for carrying drugs that were illegal in Egypt but are legal in the UK.

As a PP says,

Tramadol is a class C drug and is only legal on prescription for the person they were prescribed to. She and the colleague had already committed an offence before she left the UK.

She'll be out soon and 'starring' in Celebrity Big Brother or coming to a panto near you.

it's all a bit odd, I was under the impression that prescription drugs were pretty freely available in Cairo...

OK lizzy don't you or your lawyer friend do any reading before you make assertions then

In my opinion motivation should play a significant part in determining how severely someone is treated ... Given it seems she’s been stupid rather than bad then I’d want the Foreign Office to advocate for her

This is all very well, but in the absence of incriminating messages or whatever, how do you prove what someone's "motivation" was? Of course anyone who's been caught is going to lie, so all anyone can work on is the evidence

It's true that she's claimed her "husband" knew nothing about this, probably because she doesn't want to "upset him" and hopes he'll wait for her with open arms. She'd almost certainly be wrong about this, so no doubt when she's been in jail a while the story will start to change ...

Me too Dull my cousin once bought various drugs from a pharmacy there to use recreationally but that was a good few years ago now. Perhaps things have changed.

I don't feel sorry for Laura Plummer, she broke the law before she even left Britain and she must have known that. I don't see many people who are upset about the horrific prison conditions being upset about the Egyptian women suffering them either.