Andrew Drummond

on June 28, 2009

Link to British couple fight airport extortionists

. 135 Comments

Police volunteer admitted that 160 tourists were scammed including six Britons.

“No I dont want a laptop I’ve got too many of those. Jewellery will do.”

Pictures Andrew Chant

This is a blog only

Duty free

She sat there clutching a plastic bag containing a lipstick along with a till receipt for 570 baht. Sian, from Kilkenny in Ireland saw her life ahead in a Bangkok jail and was clearly dumbstruck.
“I never intended to steal anything. I paid for the lipstick and had also picked up some eyeliner worth about 900 Thai baht and taken it to the till. This is all a terrible mistake. I paid by credit card. I thought I had paid for both items”
Sian faces a year in jail……unless.

Ratchatewa Police Station

Friday 4 pm: I am at Ratchatewa Police station just off the perimeter road at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport to see ‘Sian’ who had been shopping at King Power, the massive consortium which has a virtual monopoly over tourist duty free sales there, when their security pounced.
I tell Sian (not her real name) I am a journalist. “Oh this is not going to make the papers is it? Please do not write anything”. I put down my notebook and pen. I give Sian my telephone number and make my excuses and leave.
What I wanted to talk about, I could not say with the police officer present. The policeman, who I believe, thought that I had come to help the lady financially, asked why I was going so quickly.
Sian had a lawyer and has already got bail for 100,000 baht (about £1800) and has paid the lawyer a deposit of Bt 50,000 (£900). Her lawyer is recommended by the British Embassy.
Before her, laid out on the desk were colour stills printed on A4 taken from one of the thousands of CCTV cameras King Power have installed in their airport shops. Do they show she is guilty?I have no idea.
kingpower-logow I cannot pursue this story unless she makes a complaint. To do so in Thailand could seriously jeopardise her future. She knows it. The lawyer knows it. The police know it, the courts know it. I know it. So I’m not expecting a call – at least not until she is safe back in the old country.
Guilty or not guilty Sian is now embroiled in one of the infamous Bangkok scams. The scam is a variation of what happens in police stations all over the country but here it catches tourists when they are most vulnerable, often tired penniless and psyching themselves up for a long haul flight. Similar scams around the country account for why paedophiles are repeatedly released and why when we read about arrests we rarely read about the outcome.
Sian does not want any publicity. She was in Bangkok for a ‘Save the World’ type conference.
She has been told she will have to wait at least a month to go to court. She could go to jail for a year. She is another potential candidate for the TV series ‘Banged Up Abroad’.

Scammed? you may end up in this pink hotel

The option which has been given to all those tourists from many countries,who have preceded her (several a week) is, of course, to pay up. Police will keep the bail and she will be required to pay a large payment for letters which will say that police can find no conclusive evidence of her guilt and allow her to leave the country.

This scam is probably netting millions of Thai baht a month. Legally I cannot say where the money is going. But the first 100,000 baht bail goes to police and is not returned and the rest goes through a ‘fixer’, often a Thai speaking foreign police volunteer. After the payments are made the victims receive a letter from the Prosecutor at Samut Prakarn Court saying a case has not been pursued through a lack of evidence.
If the prosecutor were to have been paid, and of course I cannot say that, then other officials at the court would normally be too.
Today Michael Sheridan, a colleague on the Sunday Times, exposes the case of Britons Stephen Ingram and Xi Lin. Sheridan identifies a Sri Lankan Sunil “Tony” Rathnayaka as the fixer who extorts the cash and pays it out to a man known as ‘Phua Yai Noi’ – the little big man. ‘ This pre-supposes there is a ‘Big Big’ man. Tony’admits taking the cash from the couple. He is only there to help, he says. He boasts he has three houses and does not need to do this for the money.
Ingram, a former Cambridge graduate, now an IT and electronics expert and Xi Lin, an IT consultant and BSc and Msc, were arrested and accused of stealing a Givenchy wallet worth over £120.
The threat was all the more severe because (a) they were charged with organised crime (there were two of them) and that (b) the crime took place at night (when most European bound flights leave the airport) all adding to the severity of their case.

British royal with Vichai and sons: courtesy Siam Polo Club

Guilty or not guilty King Power presented CCTV evidence as usual and claim, while they do prosecute severely, they do not prosecute without absolutely firm evidence. Nevertheless the video evidence is by far means conclusive and the couple were not caught with the wallet in their possession.

The chairman of King Power is Vichai Raskriaksorn a polo playing acquaintance of Britain’s Prince Charles, though maybe not a close chum because, although a promise that Charles son William will playpolo in Thailand has been made it has yet come to fruition.

King Power say they cannot be held responsible for what happens in the police station. For sure they know how the system works but its unlikely any management are involved - no matter what some people think of their prices.

In all cases they say they have solid CCTV evidence against the ’shoplifters’ and have started to post the videos on their website.

In a written statement describing their ordeal Ingram and Xi Lin insist they were told that some of the cash would have to go back to King Power. But its only hearsay and police could just be upping the ante.
The couple were held virtually hostage for five days in a pink love motel while their cash was ATM’ed here by the maximum amount possible per day (£300 each) and also transferred from the UK. Conveniently there were ATM’s at the police station and hotel. Xi Lin had to use the £5000 saved to start her Eton educated son’s university education. From their statements they were scammed right up to the point of departure when ‘Tony’ demanded a further £1000 to clear matters with immigration. They claim that Tony, who they refered to as ‘Officer Z’ said that in April this year some 160 tourists had been nabbed at the airport, six of them Britons. Apparently Tony no longer took laptops in lieu of cash as he had too many, but he would consider jewellery.

Police to Immigration 'No intention to steal'

What stands out about Michael Sheridan’s investigation is that we have here for once, not the receipts for the bribes, but the letters which they obtained which showed they were innocent and allowed them to leave the country albeit at a price of £8000.

The first letter (left) is from Ratchatewa Police to Immigration police saying the couple can leave the country.

The second letter (below right) is from the Prosecution Office at Samut Parkarn which stated the court had dropped the case through lack of evidence.

And there we have it.
Personally, guilty or innocent I might not take my chances against Samut Prakarn court. But one worrying aspect about Ingram and Xi Lin’s testimony is a quote attributed to Kate Duffall at the British Embassy saying that people ‘had been arrested walking around King Power shops with goods in their hands’. Dufall has not confirmed her statement.

However it is not difficult to see there may be some over zealous staff being used here, particularly if they have to pay out of their wages for goods that are stolen. In most countries one has to leave the shop first before theft can be established.

No evidence - Samut Prakarn court

Mr. Ingram and Xi Lin have now been recommended a lawyer whom they say has been known to the British Embassy for 15 years and they want to pursue a matter through the Thai courts. I’m not holding my breath.

As the British Embassy may protest, there may be an investigation. But of course their standard quote is: “We will not interfere in another country’s justice system”

If similar cases in the past are anything to go by the Sri Lankan national will be the fall guy who will be presented to the press at a table with piles of 1000 baht bills in front of him. And all local officials will be vindicated

Former Premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who gave King Power the airport concession did after all announce proudly: ‘There is nothing under the sun the Thai police cannot do,” though I guess he meant it in a positive way.

So there you have it. Be very very careful out there.

That eye-shadow or eye-liner could cost you up from £4000 - £10,000!

Finally just a reminder of another scam which has been widely reported. Arriving passengers who stop to buy stuff at King Power duty free, which are over the maximum duty free limit, have reported on the internet that their purchases are tipped off to the ‘Thai authorities’. They are later stopped, not in the Customs Hall, but as they exit the airport.

NB This report has been edited from the original version. Sian did call back. During our conversation she stated categorically that she took both items to the till and presented her credit card. When she signed the slip she thought she had paid for both items.

Gangland Britain in Thailand - A hired assassin in Pattaya

Published

on June 24, 2009

. 0 Comments

This is a blog only
Soi Yodsak or Soi 6 in Pattaya is a small street but it has its named carved out proudly on the city’s stone of infamy. Some say, with tongue in cheek, that is the British equivalent of ‘Lover’s Lane’.
It’s a street of ‘short-time’ bars and always seems up for discussion on a website called ‘PattayaSecrets.com’ run by a Briton.

Sex tourists, or ‘mongers’ as they call themselves on the website, photograph their ‘purchases’ and post the pictures on the site’s ’Trip Report’ forum. Pattaya Secrets in turn is a major sponsor of ‘Pattaya One News’, a local television news channel of sorts, which is run by another Brit who is in turn the Group Leader (Gruppenfuhrer) of the black clad westerners in the Pattaya Tourist Police Volunteers, who in turn have been used to investigate Uzbeki prostitutes breaking Thailand’s strict indecency laws. Oh, anyway I think we all get the picture here…

Like the building society Halifax bar's motto is a 'Little Extra Help'

Now and again the Pattaya Police raid Soi Yodsak, ignoring the girls saying: “Come inside me please!”, and exclaim in apparent shock that sex-bars are operating there. The items of proof, they declare, are the mattresses, condoms, etc in the rooms upstairs. The bar owners put up with the raids stoically, pay their dues, and its back to business as usual, as they lay out the mattresses again.
henryskydive Anyway it is to this street in 2002 that Robert Henry, 42-yr-old British career villain, decided to set up a cover for his other businesses.
He invested in a skydiving company called ‘Siam Air Sports’ (SAS) with a ‘former SAS man’, Briton Ron Loveridge.
Unlike a large number of foreigners in Pattaya who claim they are ex-SAS, but are really on UK social security payouts, Ron was actually appeared to be the full ticket at least according to ‘Middy’ Campbell, former head of security at the British Embassy in Bangkok, and a former Parachute Regimental Sergeant Major. (One reader of this site claims he was Royal Corps of Transport but they are not known for their parachuting skills).
Their ‘airport manager ‘was a chap called Paul Cryne, then 55, whom I guess mowed the grass and put up the windsock on a piece of farm land they were using out of town. It certainly was not one of the official airfields in the area.
henrycrash Ron had acquired a Brittan-Norman Islander aircraft, but the business went flat after the plane crashed shortly after take-off on one of its early trips. Luckily no-one died. The Thai pilot had taken off on full flaps, something not good if you are trying to attain airspeed.
Soon the directors of the plane-less company were at each other’s throats. The Skydive Bar which they had opened up in the soi was the scene of some volatile altercations. Robert Henry, a career criminal, was not a happy bunny with his investment up in smoke. The insurance company would only pay half the claim and the plan was in Ron Loveridge’s name.
Back home in Coventry Henry had switched between credit card fraud and drugs. He was a member of a well known criminal family. His stepson had been charged with murder and he himself was the suspect in the murder of a boxing coach, Joe Montague, who had been gunned down outside his home on the outskirts of the city.
But in Pattaya, where Robert Henry was about to die, he also had a violent reputation. He had on several occasions beaten up his wife Wilai Chiewcharn and on October 4th 2003 just a few days before his own death he had beaten her up so severely that she had to be hospitalised. He also had many quarrels with local Thais, apparently severely biting the nose of one.

'Baileys'

(Wilai by the way was known as ‘Baileys’ among the British criminal fraternity, pronouncing it as ‘Byelees’ after the way she ordered her favourite drink).
Two days after she was hospitalised, Henry’s body was found face down in a swamp in Jomtien. He had been shot six times in the head. A set of motorcycle tracks led a trail away from the scene.
That’s how I came to know all these characters. Pattaya Police were, as usual and in their own inimitable way ‘hot’ on the case, which involved millions of Thai baht and they quickly pulled in the ‘airport manager’ Paul Cryne as being the most likely suspect.
Baileys claimed firstly that she had an affair with Cryne and that he was jealous of her husband. Then she claimed that she had received a call from foreigners to say her husband had been kidnapped.

Paul Cryne

Thai Police arrested Cryne. They said they had found DNA evidence linking him to Henry’s death in a BMW car which he had sent after the murder to be completely gutted and re-upholstered.
He seemed an unlikely suspect and the investigation was being conducted in part by a policeman I knew to be extremely suspect and greedy. Meanwhile the wife took over the company and all its assets and the poor ‘ex-SAS man’ Loveridge was left fighting a case in which, to put it the Thai way, the sugar had already entered the elephant’s mouth.
Cryne pleaded his innocence. He was a trained life-saver and diver, and even had a good citizen’s commendation from the Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Constabulary. He had an entry in the Guinness Book of Records for a 24 hour swim underwater, and he had certificates to show he had saved the lives of scores of people.
But then again he did finally admit that had been in jail too, for an offence of violence. Cryne did have a temper. Thai police said they believed the murder was orchestrated from England. Certainly a possibility but my money was on the wife.

Chief Constable's Award

Pattaya or rather Sattahip police failed to put together a credible case. Police in the UK who knew that Henry’s credit cards were systematically milked after his death, also thought he was probably a ‘patsy’ or ‘fall guy’..
When I went to Cryne’s trial, few of the long list of prosecution witnesses bothered even to turn up. Not even ‘Byelees’ their star witness. He was acquitted. He’s waiting to see if the prosecution will appeal -although, even if they do not, its not going to get him out of trouble
The only winner was the wife who got just about everything.
I was pretty sure too that Cryne was innocent and during the long process of Thai justice, when he could not leave the country and technically could not work, I even slipped him the occasional 1000 baht note, as did others.
(I am very cautious now about lending money to Brits in the sh*t. The first was a former Merchant Navy officer who had built up a 200,000 baht bill in a Bangkok hotel and five or so of us chipped in about Bt37,000 each. He no longer seems to recognise we even gave him the cash. The second time was to a Briton wanted in Australia for murder. He said he wanted to give himself up (as he was wanted for jewellery robbery in London, but he preferred Aussie jails) I thought I was stringing him along for the Aussie Feds to whom he had agreed to surrender. He was stringing me along!)

Graham Birchwood

Anyway, to come to the point of this story, the few baht I gave Cryne was obviously not enough. He may well have been innocent of the murder of Robert Henry but now he is wanted for the cold-blooded contract murder of a British housewife, an offence he is said to have committed while on bail on the Pattaya murder charge.
Earlier this month Briton Graham Birchwood was jailed in Britain for 32 years for the murder of his ex-wife, purely for the proceeds of her will, which she had made out to him and decided not to change.
Sharon Birchwood, a sufferer of ME (myalgic encephalopathy) was strangled with electrical cord at her home in Epsom, Surrey. Cryne’s DNA has apparently been found under her fingernails.

Sharon

Judge McKinnon at Croydon Crown Court said: “”There was a significant degree of planning and premeditation involved in bringing in a man from Thailand.”
Witnesses said that Cryne had arrived in Thailand and stayed at Graham Birchwood’s mother’s house then left again after the murder.

Paul Cryne has been banged up again in Thailand. If he is going anywhere it is to a British court on a murder charge, where the DNA evidence seems a lot more concrete.

So is there a moral here? I don’t know. But it has been a severe test of truth and judgment in Thailand and a filip for the ‘no smoke without fire’ school of thinkers.

More to the point. Have I paid a hired assassin?

Paedophiles fight back in Thailand

Published

on June 16, 2009

. 2 Comments

From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok, June 15
Two suspected paedophiles have had a former Thai police volunteer arrested in the Thai resort of Pattaya for harassment and blackmail.
The two paedophiles, a Swede and a Briton, whose names have been withheld, had both agreed to pay £2000 and £3000 respectively for indulging in under age sex with young boys.
One withdrew the cash from the bank. The second paid in full. But when they realised their blackmailer was not a normal policeman, they made an official complaint.
The arrested man Khun Wansanor said that he had worked voluntarily with police and grabbed their, apparently lucrative, list of names of suspected paedophiles.
Critics, however, say he would have had to have been given the list by a Thai police officer.
Thai police were at pains to say that Wansanor was not a real policeman. Police Major General Koson Paowes said: “He was impersonating a policeman but he has not had any police training.”
Nevertheless despite one or two high profile cases many arrested paedophiles in Pattaya, a resort known for its sex and sleaze, are eventually released after paying large ‘fines’ which go to local police. Those arrested claimed they have had to pay up to £15,000.
Among those released, have been two arrested in a joint operation with Britain’s CEOP last December which was described as a triumph of international police co-operation.
“The Royal Thai Police has demonstrated an unerring commitment to making Thailand a hostile environment for UK offenders,” said CEOP’s chief Jim Gamble at the time.
One Briton, Maurice Praill, known as ‘The Ghost’ abused children for over twenty years, paying off police many times, before finally being sent to jail in January for 14 years after outrage was expressed by child protection agencies at the local police’s failure to keep him behind bars.

Memorial for DJ who ‘needlessly’ drowned in Thailand

Published

on June 16, 2009

Link http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=205123015113&ref=share

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Memorial for drowned DJ June 16 2009
From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok,

Link to Surrey Advertiser
Friends and relatives are to host a memorial party to a 21-yr-old DJ from Surrey, who, they say, needlessly drowned in Thailand after authorities in the holiday island of Phuket cut down on beach safety procedures.
Last week James Patton, 21, from Beacon Hill, Hindhead, was the third tourist to drown in two days on Karon Beach on the Thai holiday island. It was the last day of his holiday.
Like the other tourists he was dragged out to sea by the undertow. Several hundred tourists watched the spectacle. His girlfriend Bethan Jones, also 21, was saved by British tourists.
One of the witnesses, Briton Sian Mulley said: “The police did nothing, and the life guards wouldn’t even go in, they tossed a board at my brother to use instead. My brother is in bits that he couldn’t do more and he is so angry that the lifeguards and authorities were useless.”
Patton’s family have set up a Facebook site to warn tourists of the dangers of swimming in Phuket during the rainy season.
Last week local authorities admitted that they had not as usual employed teams to warn tourists not to enter the water due to shortage of funds and volunteers.
Although the sun may shine and the sea look calm rip tides in Phuket during the rainy season are notoriously ferocious.
The memorial party will be held at the Woodcock Pub, Churt Road, Beacon Hill on July 3rd.

Auto-erotic asphyxia a serial killer and Andrew Drummond’s ban from Singapore

Published

on June 12, 2009

. 2 Comments

This is a blog only

Scripps as one of the 101 dalmations. Not your average serial killer

No sooner than I thought I had put the David Carradine story to bed then out came the conspiracy theorists.
As readers of this site will know, Carradine was found hanging in a cupboard in his room in the Nai Let Park Hotel in Bangkok.
The day his body was found there was considerable hesitation as to which newspaper or television channel would print the facts first…..that he was found hanging by his neck, and well, er, genitals, in what was almost certainly an act of auto-erotic asphyxiation.
When Auntie BBC reported that he was hanged by his neck and the rope was also around’ other parts of his body’ we knew it was definitely true.’ The word ‘ Balls’ as part of human anatomy is not in the BBC’s ‘House style book’.
Anyway I loved the ‘murder theorists’ (Well , if an agent says he was murdered, a newspaper is going to go with it. They can always change it the following day) and similarly ‘ The family call in the FBI!’ (ditto, true but the reality is in their dreams) but most of all I loved the story in the New York Post of him being assassinated by secret ninjas ninja2 or kung fu practitioners, whom he had upset in his fearsome career (presumably, according to his ex-wives, of indulging in exceedingly odd and dangerous sex acts).
I got out of Bangkok at about the time the Bangkok newspaper the ‘Nation’, which broke the original suicide story, belatedly got close to publishing the most likely true version.

So there I was on Jet-Star Asia to Singapore and off to the IBIS hotel to help some chaps on the Crime and Investigation Channel to help re-focus their documentary on a British serial killer John Martin Scripps.
(Ibis Hotel? Well, its a spanking new budget hotel and TV budgets are not high at the moment! Their ’soft service’ laundry service means you do it yourself!)
“Are you sure you can come? The police tell us you are banned from Singapore,” one of their executives said before he sent my flight booking. “Have no fear!” I reply.
There’s a little history I have here with the Singapore Government.

John Martin Scripps passport photo

John Martin Scripps was the ‘Tourist from Hell’ in the British papers. In Singapore they call him ‘The Butcher’. I prefer the tag I gave him.
He was a 30-something career criminal, country house burglar turned drugs trafficker, who disappeared from jail every jail he was sent to on every home leave he was given.
In the 90s he was released from prison on home leave, having learned the skills of butchery and bricklaying. These were skills, it would turn out, he was not going to put to use in the workplace in the UK, but in his chosen career of crime.
He got out of jail to travel the world with a set of butchers’ knives, a stun gun, two sets of handcuffs and a hammer and had drawn blood and carved several times before he got to Singapore and befriended a South African at Changi airport.
The South African, Gerard Lowe, was on a budget trip and they agreed to share a room at the River View Hotel. Bad call. Lowe never lasted the night. His body parts were later found in plastic bags in the Singapore river.
Scripps had started off in Mexico, where he went to live with an ex-wife he met when she was 15, and with whom he was still besotted. Almost certainly his first victim was a young British financial consultant called Timothy McDowall, who disappeared from Cancun on the Yucatan peninsular.

Then he came to Thailand and shared a taxi with Canadian Sheila Damude, 49, and her son Daren, 21, to Nilly’s Marina Inn in Patong Beach, Phuket. Though illiterate, Scripps played the charming little boy lost Brit.
The Canadians’ bodies were found chopped up and dropped on local wasteland, curiously ‘normally used for dumping bodies’ according to the local press.

Sheila and Daren Damude

Meanwhile Scripps was off to Singapore to pick his next victim, Lowe. After that murder, he returned to Thailand, where of course he had the obligatory Thai wife from Buri Ram. But after a few days he needed to go back to Singapore to pick up some stuff he had left behind.
Unknown to Scripps, Lowe’s body parts had already been found after surfacing in the Singapore river He obviously did not know that bricks have another use, apart from building houses. Lowe had also been identified. Police knew who was sharing a room with him. And Scripps, whose IQ was well below your average ‘Boston Strangler’ , ‘Jack the Ripper’ or fictional ‘Hannibal Lecter’, flew back to Singapore under his same pseudonym (Simon Davies) that he used to check into the River View Hotel .
Game, set and match. Singapore Police bagged him straight away. On him they found the passports of the three three missing persons, McDowell, and the Damudes, their credit cards, and his butchery and bricklaying gear, though by this stage he had not had the opportunity to brick someone up!
(The Thais did not even know the two Canadians were murdered).
Well, now to cut a long story short, I was commissioned to investigate Scripps background and in due process went into Taneh Merah Prison with his mother and sister to interview him.
The interview was boring although he did admit killing the South African Gerard Lowe, claiming he was defending himself from a homosexual pass, but even I know that Singapore hotels do not provide hammers, along with the soap, shampoo, and cotton buds.
He denied anything to do with the Damude or McDowall killings, but then surprisingly mentioned that he was not travelling alone and that his ‘shadow’ probably did it, and that his ‘shadow’ also disposed of Lowe’s body.
Anyway the subsequent story was splashed over the press in the UK……..so in stepped the Singapore government.
I received a message from a Mountie (RCMP) pal who was the DLO (Drugs Liaison Officer) at the Canadian Embassy in Bangkok. He was just about to be posted to Singapore. The Singapore authorities had requested an interview with me as to how I got into the jail. Could he fix it? they asked the Mountie. He called me. ’ Ok’, I said. The Mountie could cash in the favour when he got to Singapore.
In the bar of the Amari Watergate I met a woman of the Singapore’s prosecution office, and a Singapore cop. Quite nice and polite. But terribly straight laced.
“We believe you may have have been guilty of deceiving an official of the Republic of Singapore when you visited Scripps in prison. You should not go back as you may be arrested on this charge!,” was the line the prosecutor followed as she sipped the beer I bought her.
“How is that possible?” I said. “I did not say one word to any official in Singapore. All I did was produce my passport along with Scripps’ mother and sister as they requested a visit. Of course I did not say I was a journalist, as journalists are not allowed to do anything in Singapore except cover trade fares. In any case nobody asked me who I was. But if you look at my passport ( and I showed them) you will see that it says in the back that I am a journalist….. Make mine a pint!”
Anyway we left it at that. They went back to Singapore and I decided not to cover the Scripps trial just in case. That was done by my colleague Andy and Sophia Wilkinson, an English rose (then on local Bangkok English language radio, who went on to the BBC) …..besides, I was off to Mexico to see Maria Pilar Arellanos, Scripps’ ex-wife, with whom apparently he was still infatuated, and to whom he sent some fairly illiterate and awful poems.

Maria Pilar Arellanos

Here’s a taster.
“My beloved’s words to me is reacher than nectar is to a bee and far sweeter than sugar
But now sugar. Tast better To me. Becose my beloved dus not write to me
The mighty river trickle and flows through the forest of old Mexico
where in times of old my beloved blood did boldly flow with my ancestral name upon her soul
But old man time sucked my ancestral name from my beloved’s sweet soul
And placed within that pure soul of heaven
disgust and revulsion for me”

Well Scripps has certainly done something for his ancestral name!
Meanwhile boy ! was Maria Pilar a handful. She was stunningly attractive as an 18-yr-old, and still pretty, but now had acquired a Mexican mamma’s girth. Nevertheless she still had a teenager’s zest for life.
Scripps would find her wherever she was after each of his escapes, and come bounding in on her with the cry: “Have no fear Scripps is here!” – which has a sort of different ring about it now in Singapore and Thailand.
She was happy to talk, but wanted to make the most of a moment. She took me around Mexico City ordering Mariachi bands to come and play for us at our tables. And she had an exotic taste for cocktails on Cancun beach.
She also dragged me into clubs and complained when I left the dance floor as these trumpet wielding, guitar playing, sombrero wearing, goucho bands continued to appear from nowhere. A sure way to put you off your fajitas.
I had to flee to get any real work done on the disappearance of Timothy McDowall. Anyway I completed my assignment and Scripps later became the first westerner to hang in Singapore (not due to me of course).
He did however commit one final act of revenge on us all. A last poem,
“One day poor. One day reach. Money filds the pane of hunger but what will fill the emteness inside?
I know that love is beyond me. So do I give myself to god. The god that has betrad me. Can I be a person again? Only time will tell me.
You may take my life for what it is worth, but grant thows that I love, pease and happiness”

Anyway there are a few girls in Issan, lucky that they did not marry a serial killer such as this girl below who had invited him home to meet her family.

Scripps' Thai wife

I must admit, I have had my fun in Singapore. But it’s no place for a journo with any street cred. I loved it much more when there Bugis Street WAS Bugis Street and things were a lot more seamy, and perhaps natural. But then Singapore tarted up its act and seemed to lose individualism and became nice and clean. There is however still a fur coat and nae knickers feel about it.
Since then, one of the best times I had was when Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong was suing opposition leader MP Joshua Jeyaretnam.
George Carmen QC was brought in from London to defend Jeyaretnam. Of course there was no chance of winning against the Prime Minister of Singapore in a Singapore court but I was in stitches in court as Goh Chok Tong went under cross examination. Carmen intellectually undressed Mr.Goh and the judge had to intervene to stop any further jokes at the P.M’s expense. “I am the Prime Minister of Singapore you cannot talk to me like that!” puffed an indignant Goh.
Sadly George Carmen is now dead but he is one ‘bon viveur’ who is difficult to forget.
As the court case came close to its conclusion I got my favourite taxi driver quote into ‘The Times’.
“Nobody fishes in the lake anymore, because not even the fish open their mouths”.
Anyway after a great night out on Clarke Quay on beer and tapas with Chris one of the execs of the organisation which runs the ‘History’ , ‘Crime and Investigation’ and ‘Bio’ channels in Asia, I headed back to Bangkok.

At the gate to my flight I was stopped by a Singaporean official: “Your name, sir?”. I froze. Then came “What do you like most about Singapore?” from the official now pulling out a pen and clipboard .“Erh, um. It’s different from other Asian cities” I mumbled. I do actually love Singapore, but for short term visits. Then it slip: “Oh, the four floors of whores?*”
“What?, she asked, and I dared not repeat myself. I could have kicked myself particular after warning people on this site about people giving smart remarks at airports.
Q: How much have you spent on presents in Singapore?
A: Fifty dollars on presents for my daughter.” I was not their biggest spender this week.
Anyway she gave me a packet of coasters (which my daughter has now eaten along with Mickey Mouse) for answering her questions, a lot better than a warrant of arrest.

Meanwhile you never know who your are going to meet while elephant trekking in northern Thailand or at the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.

*The ‘Four floors of whores’ is in Orchard Tower. The author wishes to state that all he has partaken of there is a few beers. Singaporeans tend to look down on Thailand, partly because of its sex trade, but then again Singapore provides a high percentage of the sex tourists to Thailand. Ask almost any taxi driver. The misplaced remark was merely drawing attention to the fact that the city, as author mentions, is still a little bit fur coat and no knickers .

Scripps elephant trekkingScripps with Thai girl at Grand Palace

British tourist dies as Thai authorities cut down on safety procedures.

Published

on June 8, 2009

. 12 Comments

British tourist dies as Thai authorities cut down on safety procedures.

Link to Scotsman

From Andrew Drummond,
Bangkok June 8 2009
A 21-yr-old pregnant British girl returned home to Heathrow today after her boyfriend became the latest in a series of tragic drownings on the Thai holiday island of Phuket.
Bethan Jones, left behind the body of her boyfriend James Henry Patton, also 21, the third tourist drowned in a week on Karon Beach, Phuket.
Patton, from Beacon Hill, Surrey, was drowned on the last day of the couples’ holiday at the Centara Resort Hotel, on Karon Beach.
Although the beach has an almost permanent undertow during the rainy season, no signs in English have been put on the beach warning of the dangers.

Karon Beach during tourist season: Picture: Danielle

Instead there are just beach patrols organised by the local council and red flags, but they are not prominent. This year due to the economic turndown no beach patrols have yet been provided.
Ironically, it seems local authorities did not wish to put up permanent signs in English for fear of alarming tourists,even though the sea can still look tempting in the rainy season.
James Paton drowned, when, for the third day running, a freak wave, which police described as three metres hig, engulfed him, Bethan and two other Britons, rolled them over, and dragged them out to sea in the undertow.
The two British men and James Patton’s pregnant girlfriend, were rescued after police launched a boat. But the rescuers found James Paton’s body a kilometre off shore.
A day earlier a 43-yr-old Frenchman and his Thai girlfriend were seized in the same way. They also drowned. And a 12-yr-old girl has gone missing off Surin Beach, Phuket, also notorious for its undertow.
Two days before members of both an Australian and Indian family swimming off Karon Beach were luckily rescued.
Police Colonel Chanat Sutima: “Holidaymakers tend to ignore the flags, and even warnings from local people. That is why the local authority normally put patrols up on the beach. But they had not done this yet this year. It is the rainy season. It is dangerous to go swimming in the rainy season because of the undertows, but many tourists do not realise that.

Red flag on Karon Beach during monsoon Pic David Scotland

“The waves are not like the Tsunami in 2004 but they can still be killers.”
Karon District official Tawee Thongcham said: “Patrols will be established but there have not been the funds or the people to do this so far. This is the rainy season and the winds and currents are unpredictable.”
British Embassy officials are organising the return of Mr. Paton’s body to the UK.
A management spokesman at the Centara Hotel said: “We are warning all tourists to stick to the swimming pool and not go in the sea.”

David Carradine’s deviant behaviour was ‘potentially deadly’ - ex wife

Published

on June 7, 2009

. 2 Comments

Carradine’s deviant behaviour was deadly, claims ex wife.
From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok

Link to Mail on Sunday
After the body of Hollywood star David Carradine was flown out of Bangkok today sensational claims that the star routinely committed ‘deviant sexual behaviour which was potentially deadly’ have been revealed in divorce papers lodged by his ex-wife.
In the papers lodged in 2003 his former wife Marina Anderson also accused the star of ‘Kill Bill’ and the 70’s TV series ‘Kung Fu’ of incest and that Carradine and the unnamed relative admitted as such. But Carradine refused to go for counselling.
In a phone interview with the ‘Smoking Gun’ website Marina Anderson is reported to be still standing by the accusations but declined to go into further details.
Carradine, 72, suffocated to death in the Nai Lert Park Hotel in Bangkok earlier this week, after an apparent attempt at auto-erotic asphyxia went wrong. He was found naked in a cupboard in room 352.
The room has now been closed and even the number taken off the wall outside and from room directions by the hotel’s third floor lift.
Thai police have ruled that Carradine killed himself and that no other person entered the room after he retired for the night. He body was found by a room maid shortly after 10 am on Thursday morning.
Items found in his room also suggest abnormal sexual behaviour. The Bangkok Post will tomorrow (Sunday) claim that there were many items of male underwear in the room all of which had a hole cut out of the bottom.
Quoting a special investigator at Lumpini police station Bangkok they also say he had a personal ‘Penis shrine’ in his room with joss sticks.
His manager Chuck Binder is widely being quoted that he believes Carradine was murdered. “His hands were tied behind his back. There was a footprint on the bed that was not his. For sure there was foul play,” he said.
But Police Commander Somprasong Yenthuam of Lumpini police in Bangkok said: “The case is closed. We have looked at the CCTV records and his key card records. We are sure nobody else entered the room.
“The security at the hotel was good. Carradine was even escorted by a member of the hotel staff to the lift at 9 pm after he had had a few drinks in the lobby bar.”
Despite the Thai Police claim it is not unknown for guests at the Bangkok hotel to have unregistered guests overnight, often prostitutes. But normally they would have to sign in with the front desk for security purposes.
The hotel say they have told police they have no such record of such a guest in Carradine’s room.
Meanwhile court records show that Marina refused to take part in Carradine’s deviant behaviour.
She spoke of ‘ people’ of questionable character ‘that Carradine’ liked to have in his life’ in papers filed in Case No BD 347 828 in Los Angeles Superior Court.
“It was the continuation of abhorrent and deviant sexual behaviour which was potentially deadly(which )added to the complications of the relationship.
“Because of other marital problems combined with my consistent non participation in this type of behaviour that he finally moved out.
“His deviate behaviour included an incestuous relationship with a very close family member which permeated our marriage. My pleas for him to get counselling in regards to this were ignored.
“He continued to denigrate me in public (touching me in public and wanting me to flash the public with my top off.
“I have suffered professionally and personally because of my relationship with David.
“My credibility immediately plummeted upon my involvement with this man. Now that I am divorced I have noticed a change in attitudes. I’m getting auditions and the respect back.”
In her deposition Marina also refers to a woman called Annie Bierman who she refers to as Carradine’s ‘Scientologist galpal’ ‘with whom he supposedly lives’.
Normally divorce records are supposed to be filed under seal. But Carradine’s file was mistakenly placed on the public file and is now on the internet. ends

Hollywood star was hung by his neck and genitals say police

Published

on June 5, 2009

Link to Daily Mail Link to Daily Record

. 2 Comments

From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok. June 5 2009

Thai police today withdrew their suicide theory on the death of Hollywood star David Carradine and admitted that he may have died accidentally during a sex act.
After a night of confusion Thai Police General said the possibility that Carradine died while indulging in an auto-erotic sex had to be considered and that the death was accidental.
“There was a rope tied around his neck and another rope tied to his genitals, and the two ropes were tied together and they hung in the closet,” Lieutenant General Worapong Siewpreecha told reporters.
“Under these circumstances we cannot be sure that he committed suicide. He may have died while masturbating.”
The comments drew criticism from the US Embassy where an official described the police comments as a ‘violation of privacy”.
But as tributes came in for the 72-yr-old Hollywood star who rose to fame as Kwai Chang Caine or ‘Grasshopper’ in the seventies TV series the examination being carried out in Chulalongkorn Hospital, Bangkok, is likely only to reveal the cause of death , and that he died of heart failure brought on by asphyxia.
Tiffany Smith of his management company insisted: “David would not have committed suicide’ and his manager Chuck Bender sa id: “He was always full of life, always wanting to work”
Thai police say the body of Carradine, the lead in ‘Kill Bill’ and a star with over 100 Hollywood film credits was found naked in a cupboard by a maid around at around 11 a.m. in the Swisshotel Nailert Park, in Bangkok on Thursday.
When she entered the room she noticed that the beiges drapes were closed and the beige and cushions on the bed were still in their ‘day order’ at the head of the bed which had not bee n slept in.
Hotel records show that Carradine had had a couple of drinks in the lobby ‘Syn’ bar – ‘ a place to have a few wicked drinks’ and had retired at 9 pm. Records showed that he had used his keycard shortly after 9 pm and not used it again that night.
Police initially said yesterday that they believed Carradine had committed suicide. But later they amended their reaction to saying: “It looks like suicide.”
At Lumpini Polices station Bangkok Police Commander Somprasong Yenthuam ruled out any other person being involved: “All I can really say is that nobody else was involved. It looks like he killed himself. We have checked the CCTV’s and nobody else came in and out of his room.
“The room was also in perfect order. Nothing else seems to have been touched. There was some money lying around on a table and a bottle of drinking water and some water in a glass.
“His body has been taken to Chulalongkorn Hospital for a forensic examination but we expect they will find he died of asphyxiation. That is all I really can say on the matter. I do not wish to speculate.”
He said there was a foot print on the bed which did not match any of Carradine’s shoes but it probably was not relevant to the enquiry.”
Police estimated his time of death at between 11 pm on Wednesday and 1 am Thursday morning.
Carradine in Thailand to film a movie called ‘Stretch’ had failed to attend a dinner the night before with members of the production crew.
His death brought in many tributes from Hollywood including from director Martin Scorcese who said: “I am deeply saddened. I have fond memories of our time together.”
The Nail Lert Park hotel, next to the British Embassy in Bangkok is famous for its penis shrine, a tribute to penis power. The shrine is associated with fertility and visitors make offerings to the female Spirit of Tubtim who hovers around a nearby canal.
The offerings come in the form of phalluses in all shapes and sizes.

Sex game riddle of ‘Kill Bill’ star found dead in hotel cupboard- Bangkok

Published

on June 5, 2009