Monthly Archive for January, 2009

Gangland Britain in Thailand - Hua Hin and the ‘Rise of the Footsoldier’

Published
by
Andrew Drummond
on January 30, 2009
in General News
. 41 Comments

Link to Sheffield Star story based on copy supplied by this author: Man on the run in shooting

From  Andrew Drummond, Bangkok
January 29 2009
The wife of a Briton wanted in Sheffield for drugs dealing has been arrested in Thailand for ordering a ‘hit’ on one of her husband’s clients in Thailand.
And police have also issued a warrant of arrest for Darren Oxley,  41,a former Sheffield night club bouncer, over the shooting of an American on an estate he managed in the Thai resort of Hua Hin, 140 miles south of Bangkok.
Janpen Oxley, 31, his Thai wife, was seized today as she tried to cross Thai Cambodian border at Aranyaprathet, 200 miles east of Bangkok.
Police said they are still looking for Oxley, who fled bail while awaiting drugs charges at Sheffield Crown Court to become a builder property developer and property manager in Thailand.  But they believe he may have successfully crossed the border.
Janpen Oxley, had allegedly commissioned the shooting of American Donald Whiting, who had accused Oxley of sending him extortionate water bills on a private estate in the Thai resort of Hua Hin.
Whiting’s water was cut off when he complained and Oxley had been summonsed to appear in court in Prachuap Khiri Khan, the provincial capital 200 miles south of Bangkok, the day after the shooting.
Whiting, 65, was gunned down outside his retirement home last October.  He remains paralysed from the waist down. He is being cared for by his wife Dolly, a University lecturer. Prior to the shooting, he claimed, his car had been firebombed.
Also prior to the shooting the Whitings and Oxley had been involved in a public slagging match on the ‘Monsters and Critics’  website forum.  The site administrators had to close the forum because of the insults traded.  The Whitings were warned they were ‘in for a slapping’ Oxley is believed to have been furious at the damage done to his business.

A former doorman at the Republic Club in Sheffield, Oxley, 38, was arrested in a sting operation carried out by police on May 19th 2001 and subsequently charged with dealing in a Class A drug.
His rise from petty criminal to club bouncer and violent drugs dealer has been compared to that of Carlton Leach, the subject of the 2007 film ‘Rise of the Footsoldier’.  Carlton Leach was a football hooligan, who went on to become a club bouncer and major drugs dealer.  His gang beat up their rivals and nailed enemies to the floor.
Nine colleagues of Oxley, who were arrested at the same time,  were sentenced to a total of sixty years in jail. At  their trial at Sheffield Crown Court it was claimed Oxley was the ringleader of the operation and his crew had “lived in fear” of him. He was described as “violent” and “not a man you mess with” who had made considerable amounts of money.
Oxley jumped bail and fled to Thailand where he bought a Lamborghini and Bentley and Range Rover and went into the property trade, and married the ex-wife of a Thai police officer. 
Scores of expatriates have complained they have been the subject of rip-offs in Hua Hin - where Thailand’s King Bhumipol  Adulyadej has a summer palace, -and Oxley is alleged to have even employed local police to carry out threats against troublemakers on his behalf.
Two other Britons with convictions of fraud and breaches of the Trades Description Act in Britain are also involved in the property business there.
One of them Keith ‘Mitch’ Malone, owner of First Choice Homes, used to run a fraudulent holiday company in Britain – Lifestyle Travel. He swindled over £1.8 million out of customers and then fled.
The Department of Trade and Industry moved in to freeze the company’s assets and Mitch Malone fled inititally to Pattaya while on bail. His partner Martin Holland was jailed.
A local expatriate, who asked not to be quoted by name said: “Many people have been ripped off here. But they are scared to complain even though they may have lost their life savings. They developers can get nasty, and people believe they have the police in their pocket.”
Currently another foreign property developer is supplying offices free in Hua Hin to Immigration police, and Land Office officials, and also runs a  local newspaper.  All complaints against this developer have been dealt with amicably, said Tuck Dechapanya, the brother of the Mayor of Hua Hin. Funds, he said, it had been agreed would be returned to Whiting who had first bought a house from him which was never completed.
Dechapanya  has set up the Hua Hin Foreign  Service Link Centre, to deal with complaints from scammed home-buyers, most of who are foreigners who had planned to retire in Hua Hin.
He said: “There is a big problem at the moment with foreign property developers. People are asking who are they? What are they doing here? There are some complaints that they are taking money but not building.”
Many of the scams involve projects which are nothing more than artists’ impressions.  Eighteen months ago  British footballer and English international Joe Cole was used to promote the proposed ‘luxurious’ Hua Hin Country Club. The club still does not exist and the site office has closed down.
It is illegal for foreigners to buy land in Thailand. It is believed several foreigners have bought land in Hua Hin, and at Oxley’s suggestion put it in his wife’s name.
Last week Thailand’s Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva ordered local police, who benefit from handouts by property developers, to stop dragging their feet on the shooting of Donald Whiting.
Earlier this week Thai police arrested three suspects who actually carried out the shooting. They claim they carried out the shooting for 200,000 Thai baht ( £4000).
Immigration Police Colonel Benjapol Lortsawat said: “An arrest warrant has been issued for Darren Oxley (UK Passport No 703118196) but his whereabouts are unknown.” Edited 30/01/09

 

 

Police arrest hill tribe man for murder of British composer

Published
by
Andrew Drummond
on January 30, 2009
in General News
. 0 Comments

Links to othe versions of this story by same author

Evening News Edinburgh -Tribe member arrested after killing of Lothian teacher

Daily Record - Thai tribesman re-enacts murder
From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok
Police in Thailand today arrested a member of the Akha hill tribe for the murder of British composer and music teacher David Crisp, who was found brutally stabbed and beaten at his home in the northern Thai capital of Chiang Mai.
And they said Crisp was murdered last week for the equivalent of £100 and a few personal belongings such as an electronic keyboard  -  after he upset his hill tribe house guests by complaining about their dirty habits.
At a press conference in Chiang Mai today  22-yr-old Awe Ye Piang, a member of the Akha hill tribe whose villages straddle the Burma, Thai, and Lao borders, was paraded before photographers.
Police said he had confessed to carrying out the murders with two members of the Shan hill tribe, nicknamed Jack and John.  All three worked at a gay bar in Chiang Mai’s night market and had frequently been taken from the bar by Mr. Crisp, a popular and well  respected member of the expatriate community in Chiang Mai, and former head of music at Lasswade Secondary School, Bonnyrigg.
Police Captain Phanudet Booruang said police, with the help of Border Police officers, had tracked down Awe Ye Piang, who had fled to Burma.  He was arrested as he crossed the border back into Thailand, opposite the Thai settlement of Mai Chan.
“Awe Ye Piang, who had a history of involvement with drugs, was arrested on a warrant issued by Chiang Mai court. He quickly confessed to the murder.   On the day before David Crisp’s body was found he had made many calls to the composer.
“He said that all three men had stayed together at David Crisp’s house for six days. But Crisp  became angry and criticised them for eating but not cleaning their dishes, and making a mess of his house.
“This in turn made them very  angry, and they plotted together in a room at the back of the house to kill him.  Awe Ye Piang says that they opened the door to his office and saw David Crisp sitting at his computer with his back to them.
“Jack ran towards Mr. Crisp and stabbed him in the neck. John hit him over the head with a teak vase.  They took away 13 items of his belongings, which included a television and DVD player, camera and a watch, and his safe and loaded them into is Citroen M20. We found Crisps belongings at Awe Ye Piang’s address. They later abandoned the Citroen which we found.
“When they opened the safe they found only 5000 Thai baht (approx £100) which they split
“Afterwards all three men went drinking at the Lillawadee Restaurant in Chiang Mai.”
David Crisp, a popular and talented Head of Music at Lasswade Secondary School, moved to Thaland after his retirement a year ago.
Captain Boonruang said warrants had been issued for the arrests of ‘Jack and John’ but did not disclose their real names.

Writer’s note:
Police last week said they suspected the culprits were Shan hill tribe because whoever committed the murder smashed the ceiling light in his office. It was a superstition that ,if they did that, the animist sprits would not see their getaway.

However there have been many rejections of this claim that the culprits were Shan or Thai Yai after the police carried over their claim for another week.

Nick, the Shan manager of Cream Bar in the Night Bazaar has messaged in to say that he knows the two missing suspects and that they are definetly Akha not Shan or Tai Yai. He said he knew a little about their history.

British pensioner, 78, sentenced to 14 years for abusing children

Published
by
Andrew Drummond
on January 29, 2009
in General News
. 0 Comments

“I will die in Thai jail” says man known to children as ‘The Ghost’

 

Other versions of this story by the same author

Link to Daily Mail ‘Former Catholic lay preacher, 78, jailed in Thailand for raping under-aged girls

The SUN - Sick Brit jailed for child rape

From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok 

A British pensioner known to street children as ‘The Ghost’  was today jailed for 14 years on two cases of child rape, after a history of child abuse complaints dating back 18 years
Maurice Praill, 78, a former Catholic lay preacher and video shop owner, was jailed for the rape of two under-aged girls,  by the Thai Supreme Court. 
Judge Charoenchai Assawapirya-a-nan confirmed a sentence imposed more than eight years ago. 
He said there was no way the child victims could have lied because they gave so much detailed evidence including how Praill cut up his Viagra tablets and his use of KY jelly.
Praill, from Harold Hill, Essex, was led off to prison in the Thai provincial capital of Chonburi. “Paedophile I don’t use that word,” he said. “I pay to feel”
The girls were paid, he insisted.
He said he was stunned at the verdict and insisted that the elder of the two victims, aged 14, wanted to marry him afterwards.
 “I expect I will die in prison if I do not get a pardon.”
Praill had been repeatedly arrested in Thailand for child sex offences, and released on bail, by the police and courts, since he sold his business  in England and retired in the resort of Pattaya, 100 miles east of Bangkok in 1990.
He insisted before being led away in a blue prison bus: “I just like helping young people, sex or not, never mind, it was not the main thing’.
For the first few arrests in the 90s, local newspapers reported, he just ‘paid fines ‘at the local police station, another way of saying he paid off the police and victims.
But then Praill, the stepfather of former Irish International and Crystal Palace footballer Jon Goodman, was  sentenced to 14 years in December 2001 on the rape charges of two girls aged 13 and 14.
 He had been able to stay free by getting bail while petitioning the Appeal Court, which confirmed his sentence, then he went the country’s Supreme Court, a total eight year process.
Meanwhile Praill was arrested again in 2007 for the rape of two girls aged 11 and 9 and again given bail. That case has not gone to trial.
Then in March last year he was arrested in Pattaya for abusing an eight-year-old boy, and bailed again for the equivalent of £6000. That case too awaits trial.
Praill, who ran a video hire business in Chingford, Essex , called Phoenix Entertainment, was nickname  Phi  or ‘The Ghost’ because of  his frightening appearance, said Sudarat Sereewat, Director of the FACE (Fight Against Child Exploitation)  Foundation, and a member of Thailand’s National Child Protection Committee.
But local expatriates called him ‘Davros’ a fictitious villain, and creator of the Daleks,  in the BBC TV children’s sci-fi  series ‘Dr.Who’.
When he first arrived in Thailand Praill kept a diary, now with the FACE Foundation, which detailed his attempts to buy up schoolchildren as his ‘wives’. 
But far for being their benevolent benefactor he wrote how he paid sums of just £2 and £3 for what he referred to as ‘my conjugal rights’ and baulked when they asked for more.
He also complained in his diary how British government were taxing his pension.
In February 1992 he was trying to lure a girl 12-yr-old called ‘Ann’ to his rented house but she left demanding money for her school.  ‘She does not want to provide me with even minimal conjugal rites,” he wrote bitterly.
He fortified himself with the sex drug Viagra and Vitamin C capsules and trawled three locations in Pattaya, the Royal Garden Centre  the Siren Bar and the ‘Made in Thailand’ market where he knew young girls hung out and found another 12-yr-old called Lek .
He wrote how he provided ‘lacquer’ for Lek and her friends , who sniffed glue in his front room, and of his desire to conquer her.   But each time  he tried she complained ‘I don’t want to’ or ‘It hurts’.
“She makes me horny.  How long can I take this?” he asked his diary.
Then on Wednesday May 6th 1992 he announced in triumph that his grooming had been successful: “About 10 p.m. I have the best session ever. She seems to enjoy it.”
Praill went on to marry the girl in a Buddhist ceremony after she became 15 and he had paid the parents a dowry of £1000.  Monks blessed and Praill later boasted: “A policeman played the organ at the wedding party.”
He had employed the girl’s parents as his household staff.  But there may have been another motive for the marriage.  In his diary he wrote how Lek knew a ‘virgin’ working in a local tropical garden and elephant t show tourist attraction, whom she could bring to the house.
His marriage lasted only three months before his young bride walked out to be with friends her own age.
FACE Director Sudarat Sereewat said: “The Supreme Court decision is good news for children in Thailand and for those fighting to suppress child abuse. 
“Maurice Praill, I feel, should never have been given bail to continue with his abuses and interfere with witnesses and had already complained to the Regional Police.  It was a difficult case because Praill would pay the families.  Children are now safe from him.”
Abusers in Thailand have easily been able to play the system in the past. Police often negotiate compensation payments for the victims and for their own time.  Parents do not want their children to go to court and would much prefer monetary compensation.

 

 

British piano teacher murdered - killer carried out hill tribe ritual

Published
by
Andrew Drummond
on January 22, 2009
in General News
. 1 Comment

 Other versions of this story by same author

Link to Daily Telegraph - Briton murdered in tribal ritual in Thailand

Link to Daily Mail - British Music Teacher murdered by killer who used hilltribe ritual to escape

Link to The SUN - British music teacher

Link to Guardian - British teacher murdered in Thailand

Link to Evening Standard - Expat murdered in Thailand

Link to Daily Record - Scottish teacher murdered by tribesman in Thailand

Link to The Scotsman -Teacher ‘was victim of Thai tribal killing’

Link to Sky News - Tribal clue to murder of British music teacher

From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok

January 22 2009

A British music teacher and musical director was found brutally murdered in the northern Thai capital of Chiang Mai early today.
And the culprit, said police, performed a hill tribe ritual to hide his deed from animist spirits to aid his escape.
Police suspect the killer of Derby born David Lyall Crisp, 56, was a member of the Shan, a hill tribe which straddles the Burma-Thai border.
Before the killer left the murder scene he smashed the ceiling light in Crisp’s home office on the Lakeland Estate in Chiang Mai, a custom which Shan tribesmen believe would put the police off their trail.
“Shan believe if they destroy the light the spirits will not see them and they will be harder to catch. The superstition has remained since electricity generators was introduced with difficulty into some hill tribe villages,” said Police Colonel Pattipol Serichaichana.
The body of David Lyall was found shortly after 10 am.  “He had beaten about the head with a teak mug. His throat had also been cut with a six inch knife and the murderer tried to finish the act off by smothering him in a cloth which covered his piano,” added Colonel Pattipol.
David Crisp was a prominent member of the Chiang Mai expatriate community.  He drove a BMW 5 series, and owned a classic Citroen and was a member of the Classic Cars of Lanna (the old northern kingdom of Thailand) Club.
He was also director of a choral society known as the ‘Spirit House Singers’ and earned a living from writing and directing music and teaching the piano.
But David Crisp also dabbled in the gay bars for which the northern capital is famous and according to his housekeeper  Prinjai Saedin, 73: “He often brought young men home, so I knew he was gay. But I don’t think he would ever harm anyone”.
Two young men whom, known only as Wan and Am, whom  he had brought from a gay bar to live at the back of his house, have since disappeared, possibly fearing they would be blamed.
But on January 20th he had brought home a young man who has not been seen since.  Police Colonel Pattipol said enquiries were being carried out around the gay bars in Chiang Mai’s night market. When his body was found Crisp had been dead or at least 24 hours.
“We believe the murderer is of Shan origin because of the ritual of smashing the light. It appears the murderer made away in his second car a Citroen, which we have found, and may have taken a safe with him as there are drag marks outside his front door.”
Other local superstitions collected by Richard Barrow, a Briton teaching in Thailand.
*Do not let your children play with shadows during the evening. The shadow guy will come and take them away.
* Do not walk with your face down. It will make your life shorter.
* Do not stamp around the house. It will scare the spirits of the house.
* Do not walk heavily. You won’t be able to save any money.
* Do not walk across any sharp objects. It will make them blunt.
* Do not cut your nails during the night-time. It will be like breaking the bones of your ancestors.
* Do not take off your clothes or sleep next to the closet. A ghost will come to haunt you.

Author’s note: Since this article was published the Shan Herald News Agency have been in touch to point out that they are unaware of any such superstition connected to the Shan. Indeed I have not heard of such a superstition attributed to the Shan. The source of such superstitions and the ones above gathered by Richard Barrow are rather vague.  Such a superstition would much more probably be grounded in animism, which some people living in Tai Yai areas and in the Shan States of Burma can follow, no matter what their religious beliefs. I am treating this as just another statement issued by Thai police, who had been told that Crisp knew some young Shan men, until the next development, and trust the Shan or Tai Yai, will not take this as a personal affront. I have worked and filmed with the Shan and those who know me will not have done so.

A reader has pointed out that the Shan are a race NOT a hill tribe. So are the Karen etc. As I Scot I am prepared to go along with that and not be pedantic and not go too far back in history.  But its not what the English used to think of the Scots according to the words of their old national anthem!

 

 

Survivors of British Force 136 found in Burmese jungle

Published
by
Andrew Drummond
on January 18, 2009
in General News
. 5 Comments

From Andrew Drummond,

Bangkok, January 17 2009
A relief group operating clandestinely in Burma have discovered the whereabouts of what are believed to be the last two survivors of the British led Force 136 which fought behind Japanese lines in the Second World War.
A patrol of the Free Burma Rangers found one of the men within a mile of where his commander, Major Hugh Seagrim, G.C., heroically surrendered himself for execution to the Japanese, to save the inhabitants of a village being massacred.
The 80-yr-old survivor from the Karen hill tribe is still hoping wistfully that the British come to his ravaged country’s aid. FBR medics did not have time to interview the second survivor.

 Saw Nya They Mu, 80, was, at 16, just a boy soldier of the Karen ethnic minority who refused to surrender to the Japanese and chose to fight alongside the British.
Force 136, part of the Special Operations Executive, caused havoc behind Japanese lines during the Second World War with volunteers predominantly from the Karen and Kachin minorities. 
After the war ended the Karen National Union and its army the Karen National Liberation Army took up arms against the brutal Burmese military regime when it failed to give the Karen any autonomy.
At independence talks in Panglong with the British attended by Burmese leader Aung San, several ethnic states in Burma were promised autonomy.  These did not include the Karen.

Aung San stated: “ If we are divided, the Karens, the Shans, the Kachins, the Chins, the Burmese, the Mons and the Arakanese, each pulling in a different direction, the Union will be torn, and we will all come to grief. Let us unite and work together.’
But the father of Aung San Suu Gyi, was subsequently assassinated along with most of his cabinet and then the successive military junta’s stepped in.
But in any case nobody got any autonomy after the military regime took over and started brutalising the country’s ethnic minorities and the Karen have been fighting the military regime ever since.
Survivor Saw Nya They Mu told the Free Burma Rangers in Muthraw District of North Karen State, Burma: “In World War Two, the Japanese invaded here and they killed and tortured us a lot. If they wanted to kill one of us Karen, they just did it.
“We worked with the British to help them fight the Japanese. They asked us to help them and we did. 160 of us joined the British. 80 of us as local militia or home guard, and 80 as a mobile unit to fight alongside the British on their operations.
“I knew Major Seagrim- Grandfather Longlegs- He was with us all the time up to his capture. He was captured by the Japanese at Kaw Mu Pwa Der village near here.
“Only myself and Saw Tha Maw Ye, who older then me are still alive here. He is up the valley a little way where he had to run after the Burma Army attacked.
“The Burmese have not stopped oppressing us.
“As for the British we did our best for them. We tried our best to help them now we are in difficulty; we wonder if they will help us.”
Hugh Seagrim GC DSO MBE, from Eastbourne, Sussex, was known to the Karen as ‘Grandfather Long Legs’ – he was 6ft 4 inches. He was awarded the George Cross posthumously for ‘the most conspicuous gallantry in carrying out hazardous work in a very brave manner.”
He surrendered after a Japanese commander said he would put the inhabitants of an entire Karen village to death if he did not do so. Seagrim negotiated a guarantee that his Karen NCOs’ would not be put to death, but the Japanese broke their word and Seagrim and his Karen soldiers were executed in Rangoon.

Seagrim’s elder brother Lt. Colonel Derek Anthony Seagrim was awarded the Victoria Cross, also posthumously after leading the Green Howards in an attack against German positions on the Mareth Line in North Africa in March 1943.
To this day they Seagrim’s are the only family to have one brother with the Victoria Cross and another with the George Cross.
The Free Burma Rangers are an independent charity trained in jungle craft and medical care which penetrate deep inside Burma to provide assistance and medical aid to thousands of people displaced by government purges.

 Author’s note: This if of interest to me because some 20 years ago after meeting Major Aaron Po Yin at Manerplaw I went back to London to apply and collect for him the Distinguished Service Medal he earned while saving his British  Force 136 officers in a Japanese Ambush. Sadly he died a few years later but was a truly wonderful chap. See the link below

Burma’s Forgotten War

and also below for the splendid

www.freeburmarangers.org/

 

Nightclub inferno - club owners had licence to sell noodles

Published
by
Andrew Drummond
on January 2, 2009
in The Times
. 0 Comments

From Andrew Drummond,
Bangkok,  January 2nd

Bangkok blaze club was illegal - SKY News

Club blaze Briton tells of death trap - Evening Standard

Death trap Bangkok club only licensed to sell noodles - Daily Mail

The owners of an upmarket nightclub in Bangkok where scores of people died in a horrific New Year party blaze did not have the correct permits to operate but were allowed to open for business anyway by Thai police, it was claimed today.
Deputy Police Commissioner General Jongrak Juthanon of the Royal Thai Police claimed the police had refused to allow the Santika club to open in 2004, but it opened anyway while appealing to the Bangkok Administrative court.
The case has been in the courts for four years.
“We found it did not confirm to standards,” he said.
The Bangkok Post newspaper, claiming a source in the Bangkok metropolitan police, said the Santika was registered only as a night-time food shop and the licence required it to close at midnight.
It was actually in an area which in 2003 was declared a ‘non entertainment zone’ under Bangkok city zoning laws.
The contradictions accent Thailand’s laissez-faire attitude to public safety. 
The owners of the Santika bar, named as Suwit and Wisook Sejsawat, have not been seen since the fire which is now known to have killed 59 people and injured over 200, including four Britons, two of whom are in a hospital’s ICU.
Police say at the moment all they can charge the owners with is allowing an under-aged person into the club. One of the fatalities was a 17-yr-old Thai youth.
No entertainment establishments can operate in Bangkok without permission of police and almost all have to pay monthly under-the-counter stipends to police, for a hassle free existence.
The particular police station in control of Ekamai Road the location of the Santika Night club is Thong Lor police station. The same station also controls Soi Cowboy a street of a-go-go and sex bars, where early today there was another fire in a bar called ‘Rawhide’ – like its neighbour ‘Long Gun’ known for the sound of whips cracked by bar-girls dressed in black PVC. Fortunately there were no casualties.Neither the Rawhide nor any bar in Soi Cowboy has a back way out, although two have two front doors. Despite Bangkok’s risqué international reputation, prostitution and soliciting for prostitutes is against the law.

Legally the sex bars do not exist or the shows with whips, lighted candles etc.
Londoner Alex Wargacki, 29, from Finchley, said in the ICU unit at Bangkok’s Samitivej Hospital: “The Santika was a death trap. But so are many, if not most night time venues in Bangkok.
“They keep the exits to a minimum because they owners do not want anyone to run away without paying a bill.
“Foreigners living here come to accept that. But the club still has to accept responsibility for the deaths and injuries. I am going to insist the club pays my hospital bill, which after one day is already over £1500.”
Earlier he had told how he was saved from the fire by a man with ‘the hand of an angel’.
 “I woke up and heard this voice saying. ‘Come on. Come on this way’ . Then I felt myself being dragged towards an exit. A crowd of people parted in front of me and then I was out in the open air.
“Had it not been for this voice with the hand of an angel I would not be alive today.  The voice sounded as if he was Thai.  Maybe he was one of the people at the New Year’s party.
“Maybe he was a fireman. But when I get out of hospital I want to thank him for sure.”
Mr. Wargacki, a Forex trader,  had been partying with seven friends to rap and hip hop music in the club.
“Suddenly to the right of the stage I saw a firework being let off amongst a crowd of partygoers. I shot right across the room. I don’t know exactly how long, but it seemed no time at all when the whole place, walls and ceilings were ablaze.
“Then everyone started running for the door. But the door seemed tiny and people were jammed up against it.  If there was another way out, none of us knew about it, and all the windows were barred.
“There were flames from the floor to the ceiling. I could hear windows cracking and breaking in the heat.
“I felt myself going unconscious. I knew something was happening to my lungs. I could not breathe. I blacked out and fell to the floor.  That’s when I heard the voice.”

 

 

 

Saved by the hand of an angel - Bangkok nightclub fire

Published
by
Andrew Drummond
on January 2, 2009
in The Times
. 1 Comment

Other adapted versions of this story from this author on the links below

British man tells of blaze horror - SKY News

Saved by the hand of an angel - Daily Mail (online)

British survivor tells of miracle escape - Daily Mirror

British survivors tell of chaos escaping blaze in death trap club - The Guardian

British man saved by angel who dragged him out - Daily Telegraph

Brits in deadly new year blaze - SKY NEWS

Fireworks blamed for Thai club inferno - The Independent

Brits in fire hell - The SUN

Britons reveal horror of nightclub blaze -Daily Mail (Newspaper)

Saved by the hand of an angel - Daily Express

 Hand of an angel saved me from death in Bangkok club blaze, says Briton - Daily Record

 

 

From Andrew Drummond,
Bangkok
(Pictures Andrew Chant)
A British survivor of the New Year fire horror in a Bangkok club told tonight how he was saved from death by the hand of an angel.
Alex Wargacki, 29, told how he collapsed and fell unconscious, as fire raged threw the Santika nightclub in Bangkok, taking the lives of 60 people, and injuring over 200 including four Britons.
“I woke up and heard this voice saying. ‘Come on. Come on this way’ . Then I felt myself being dragged towards an exit. A crowd of people parted in front of me and then I was out in the open air.
“Had it not been for this voice with the hand of an angel I would not be alive today.  The voice sounded as if he was Thai.  Maybe he was one of the people at the New Year’s party.
“Maybe he was a fireman. But when I get out of hospital I want to thank him for sure.”
Mr. Wargacki, a Forex trader, from Finchley, North London, told how he saw the fire being started in the club at about 12.30 am on New Year’s morning.
Together with seven friends he had been revelling to rap and hip hop music in the club.
“Suddenly to the right of the stage I saw a firework being let off amongst a crowd of partygoers. I shot right across the room. I don’t know exactly how long, but it seemed no time at all when the whole place, walls and ceilings were ablaze.
“Then everyone started running for the door. But the door seemed tiny and people were jammed up against it.  If there was another way out, none of us knew about it, and all the windows were barred.
“There were flames from the floor to the ceiling. I could hear windows cracking and breaking in the heat.
“I felt myself going unconscious. I knew something was happening to my lungs. I could not breathe. I blacked out and fell to the floor.  That’s when I heard the voice
“I had been to the club many times and went to the New Year’s Party because the club was closing and it was their ‘Goodbye Santika’ party.
“I guess I always knew the place was a bit of a death trap. But that’s like so many places here. That’s Thailand. You come to expect it. I have worked here for four years and got used to it. Even some shopping malls are accidents waiting to happen.
Speaking at Samitivej Hospital off Bangkok’s Sukhumvit Road, Mr. Wargacki added “A British Embassy official came to see me today. Maybe they can help.  My hospital bill is already £1500. I am hoping the club owners will pay it.”
Alex Wargacki  was one of four Britons injured in the blaze. He was brought to the Samitivej Hospital will fellow Briton Oliver Smart, 35, who last night was still unable to speak.
A hospital spokesman said: “One of his lungs totally collapsed. He has been only able to tell us his name, and that he was with his Thai girlfriend.   She is being treated at another hospital.”
The other two Britons were named as Steven Hall, from South Wales, and Adam Butler. 
Steven Hall who was treated at the city’s Bamrungrad Hospital for third degree burns to his back and hand told CNN: “About 12.30 or 12.45, I saw flames billowing out across the ceiling.
“At first I thought it was part of the show, along with everybody else I think, but I noticed the look of terror on the people’s faces on the actual stage and I instantly realised it wasn’t.”
 ”I could feel the heat almost straight away, but people weren’t reacting,” he said.
“There was a girl behind the bar who was more concerned with getting the cash register out.”
“It was pitch black, it was burning my back, I put my hand behind me on my head, and on the way to the hospital, the skin was dropping off my hand.”
There was only one way down from the balcony that ringed the top level, and one way up from the toilets in the sub-ground floor, he said. All the windows were barred.
“The flames spread very very fast. It went straight along the ceiling.”
Thailand’s Eton educated Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva yesterday visited the scene of the tragedy and victims in the nearby Camillian Hospital.
“Why was someone allowed to let off a firework in the club?” he asked.
Serious questions were also raised about the fire precautions in the club. Thailand has a history of tragic fires.  Some 380 workers died in a toy factory on the outskirts of Bangkok unable to get out of fire escapes which were padlocked.  A club fire Route 66 club in the resort of Pattaya also took a heavy death toll.
Revelers complained that there was no sprinkler system in the Santika.  And that although there were other exits, there were no signs pointing out where they were, so everyone fled to the front door.
Exits can be locked in Thai club for fear of people leaving without paying their bills
The Foreign Office say that they have not been notified about any British fatality though it was reported by one newspaper that a 34-yr-old female British teacher had died. The bodies of some 32 people, who have been burned beyond, have still to be identified.
The club in Bangkok’s  Thong Lor district, an area known for up-market night clubs frequented by both Thais and foreigners,  operates on three levels, basement, ground floor and second floor.
Many of the dead were trapped in the basement unable to get up the one stairwell. Others were knocked down in the stampede to the clubs one main entrance and exit.
Members of the band which was playing were reported to have been able to get out a rear exit that few people knew about.
Briton Andrew Long, who managed to escape, said: “There were a number of people trapped in the toilets which were in the basement. Some people were able to escape through windows, but some were barred. “