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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

684 replies

PiffleandWiffle · 26/12/2017 22:09

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....

OP posts:
MynewnameisKy · 27/12/2017 15:17

Tramadol can be very lethal in the wrong hands. She is lucky she didn't "accidentally" kill someone.

ButchyRestingFace · 27/12/2017 15:18

Butchy I wasn't suggesting she would be charged in this country, I was saying it was unlikely anyone would have received a custodial sentence had they been found to have them in their possession in this country.

Yes, I know what you were saying. Smile

RedDogsBeg · 27/12/2017 15:18

Probably not Butchy but thought I'd try anyway, although it would never have been brought up if limited had bothered to read the whole thread.

Aridane · 27/12/2017 15:19

The British government, through the British Consultate, provide more support than some of the posters on this thread would like - www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/35521/in-prison-abroad.pdf

RedDogsBeg · 27/12/2017 15:23

limited and this is what Butchy said at 14.01 which you chose to take issue with:

I’ve seen suggestions she could have got longer than 3 years in a UK prison for supply of a non-prescribed, controlled drug she acquired from a “colleague”?

So Butchy never said she would be sentenced.

I've bolded the word could for you, perhaps you need to work on your reading skills before jumping down someone's throat and accusing them of saying something they clearly didn't.

ButchyRestingFace · 27/12/2017 15:25

I've bolded the word could for you, perhaps you need to work on your reading skills before jumping down someone's throat and accusing them of saying something they clearly didn't.

Leave her to it. I’m agog at her behaviour on this thread.

I suppose that’s what comes of not bothering to actually read the thread before jumping in and accusing posters of this, that and the next thing.

DameDoom · 27/12/2017 15:27

Would anyone be sticking up for her if she had had one glass of wine too many the night before and had driven to work slightly over the limit and therefore naively knocked someone down and killed them?

That dodgy DH could have been doling those Tramadol out like sweets to folk. They are a serious mind-fuck. I had a low dose when my disc crumbled : never again.

untoldstories · 27/12/2017 15:29

355 messages?
WTF has read them all?
People google, it's easy but it doesn't give the whole picture.
No one would receive a custodial sentence in this country for this offense.
Those are guidelines, LimitedPeriod is correct, in most cases it is not going to happen.

SingSam · 27/12/2017 15:33

I feel sorry for anyone in jail where the conditions are inhumane and it sounds like the jail in Egypt is like that. I'd hope we (as a nation) would try and protect the rights of every British citizen imprisoned in jails like that, whatever they have done.

the way the media is playing this is quite unbelievable. They keep going on about how she is a 'young' woman (she's 33) and playing down the role of the boyfriend (who has a wife). I imagine he is denying everything otherwise surely he would have been arrested too?! He sounds well dodgy and tbh, the relationship with him is the problem here it appears to me. She's been incredibly naive and I do feel for her family.

wouldn't surprise me if we find out at some stage they have some sort of relation in the press because I cannot fathom how else they are getting coverage like they are!

MynewnameisKy · 27/12/2017 15:33

This is what the legislation says about private prescriptions ...... Private prescriptions for Controlled Drugs in Schedules 2 and 3 must be written on specially designated forms provided by Primary Care Trusts in England, Health Boards in Scotland, Local Health Boards in Wales, or the Northern Ireland Central Services Agency; in addition, prescriptions must specify the prescriber’s identification number. Prescriptions to be supplied by a pharmacist in hospital are exempt from the requirements for private prescriptions.

I am wondering how she managed to get this on prescription from an online Dr. I am sure that "Push Dr" and similar places definitely state that they won't prescribe Controlled Drugs. I can't see any pharmacist dispensing it either.

ButchyRestingFace · 27/12/2017 15:36

355 messages?
WTF has read them all?

Yes, it’s called reading the thread. I’d certainly do that before I start accusing contributors of making stuff up.

Limitedperiod is correct

Er, she wasn’t correct when she accused me of making it up. The guidelines have been referenced throughout this thread. I had no idea of whether jail is/was a realistic possibility for LP, which is why I asked the question.

And was accused of making it up.

RedDogsBeg · 27/12/2017 15:37

untold you should read the whole thread if you want to take issue with something a poster has referred to from the thread.

Butchy never said they weren't guidelines nor did she say either Laura or her 'colleague' (the supposed supplier) would or even shouldreceive a custodial sentence in the UK. Butchy merely made a comment around the difference in drug laws/guidelines between the UK and Egypt which limited saw fit to take an unwarranted exception to because she had read/interpreted it incorrectly.

ButchyRestingFace · 27/12/2017 15:37

No one would receive a custodial sentence in this country for this offense.

That wasn’t what was being disputed.

Piggywaspushed · 27/12/2017 15:45

I could easily see me with my cocodamol and naproxen ,out of their boxes and in my toilet bag being dressed up as overly zealous MNers/ journos/ armchair lawyers, as me trying to disguise them.

I definitely took all my meds to Greece with me bunged all in the same ibuprofen box.

I am not necessarily suggesting that is what she was doing. I can just as likely see her allegedly unknowing husband telling her to pop them in paracetamol packs as otherwise she might get a bit of a hard time at customs...

ButchyRestingFace · 27/12/2017 15:46

I could easily see me with my cocodamol and naproxen ,out of their boxes and in my toilet bag being dressed up as overly zealous

Mines aren’t even IN boxes. Blush

mustbemad17 · 27/12/2017 15:53

There's a big difference having them in your toilet bag & hiding them in a box of other, non prescription medication, surely? I used to dosset box mine...had enough pain meds to kill a rhino sometimes! But that's almost normal behaviour

Piggywaspushed · 27/12/2017 16:04

It depends on whether they really were hidden. As Is aid, mine all go in the biggest box, which is usually an ibuprofen one.

Anyway, other media outlets say it was all just in her suitcase, so who knows!

MynewnameisKy · 27/12/2017 16:08

No one would receive a custodial sentence in this country for this offense.

The law allows up to 14 years in jail for unlawful possession of a Class C controlled drug with intent to supply.

Up to two years for unlawful possession.

I don't think she would have got a custodial sentence but the potential is definitely there.

The UK has got fairly robust laws they are just not that well implemented in my opinion.

FitBitFanClub · 27/12/2017 16:11

Does anyone know for sure why she was so sure she'd be let off and sent home? What led her to that view, that being sentenced to 3 years was such a terrible shock? (and I don't mean people just assuming that she thought she'd be cleared because she's British).

MynewnameisKy · 27/12/2017 16:16

@FitBitFanClub I am not sure but there is an attitude in this country that it's perfectly fine to share your prescription drugs with people who have a similar complaint. I come across people all the time who have tried this, that or the other because it worked fine for their uncle/ cousin/ next door neighbour.

It's an attitude you don't get at all in other countries.

There is a reason that Prescription medication requires a prescription.

IncyWincyGrownUp · 27/12/2017 16:23

Her family have been feeding her and the press with bollocks for weeks. When you’re surrounded by people telling you it’s ok and you’ll be out soon you believe it. She would have been better served by them being realistic.

MynewnameisKy · 27/12/2017 16:26

If the situation was reversed and an Egyptian woman had brought drugs into this country, how many people would believe she had made an honest mistake?

I think probably very few.

lalalalyra · 27/12/2017 16:27

No one would receive a custodial sentence in this country for this offense.

Surely the fact that Someone could try and smuggle 300 illegal drugs into this country disguised as paracetamol and wouldn't go to prison for said smuggling says more about our lax laws than it does about Egypt's?

And how is that a defence? There are lots of things that have different legal standings all over the world. there would be an outcry if British courts sentenced a foreigner and used the sentence they'd get a home as a guide.

FitBitFanClub · 27/12/2017 16:35

I do wonder sometimes if we, as a society, have created this expectation in people, that there will always be some sort of reprieve or second chance. It's standard in schools, and homes (e.g. children can earn back behaviour points), or if parents are late to apply for events at school, someone will fix it and squeeze them in as an exception. These are silly examples of course, but even for what would once have been viewed as serious crimes, there seem to be numerous "steps" before any sort of serious sanction.

So it must be quite a shock to land in a foreign country, where none of that applies. I'm not excusing Laura Plummer at all, but I think she's a product of our culture of "a slap on the wrist and it will all be OK." Except for her now, it won't be.

specialsubject · 27/12/2017 16:46

I agree - the idea that some mistakes are not retrievable seems to have been forgotten.