Andrew Drummond

on February 7, 2010

Link to Sunday Mirror ‘British drug baron’s luxury life

. 65 Comments

From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok, Feb 7 2009

Pictures by Andrew Chant and Hua Hin News

Darren Oxley

A wealthy Briton who skipped bail during his high profile trial for drugs dealing has been able to live the ‘high life’ in Thailand due to incompetence and bungling by police and the Crown Prosecution Service.

Darren Oxley, who was described in court as ‘violent’ and a ‘man you don’t mess with’, and also ‘with considerable amounts of money’ has been living undisturbed like a Lord in his tropical mansion in a beach resort.
Today Oxley, 42, should be in jail in Britain, for his last role as the leader of a drugs empire which pushed Ecstasy, cocaine and amphetamines in clubs in England.

Oxley House, Hua Hin Darren's home away from, well, er, jail

But while British authorities can track down parking offenders to Europe they have done nothing to reign in this high profile criminal even though there is a working extradition treaty.
While supposedly on the run the British Embassy in Bangkok has happily handed him a new passport to continue his life in the sun in a palatial mansion in Hua Hin, a town known as ‘The Royal Resort’ 150 miles south of Bangkok.
Nine members of his gang were jailed for a total of 60 years in 2001 at Sheffield Crown Court for dealing drugs in clubs like the town’s ‘Republic’.
But Oxley, who stood in the dock with them, was now nowhere to be seen when it came to sentencing. He never bothered to hang around. After skipping bail he was already in Thailand where he bought a Lamborghini, Bentley and Range Rover and took a Thai wife.
A bench warrant issued by the judge became worthless, because he had already fled the coop.

Darren Oxley -right- near the Whitings home in Hua Hin

Oxley has since been living the good life and laughing at British police. In Thailand he set up a building company and called ‘Oxley Homes’ in Hua Hin. The company has now been linked to a fire-bombing, and attempted murder.

Donald Whiting now paralysed

The major victim is former US Marine Don Whiting, 65, who bought a home from Oxley and then complained about being defrauded over water bills on his property. Whiting’s car was firebombed in July 2008 and then on October 24th 2008 he was gunned down at his home. Whiting is paralysed from the waist down and will never walk again.
He took took six bullets. Four pierced his lungs and exited, one was removed from his stomach, and one is still embedded in his spine. He needs 24 hours a day medical attention.

Bullet lodged in Whiting's spine

The day after the shooting, claims Donald Whitting, nicknamed ‘Biff’, he was due to give evidence in five cases of fraud against Oxley in the court at the provincial capital of Prachuap Khiri Khan.
After the incident Thai police said they had issued warrants for the arrest of Oxley and his wife Janpen/Napatsorn Oxley, 32, and five days later on January 29th she was arrested at she tried to cross the border to Cambodia with the equivalent of 6000 pounds in her handbag.
She was taken back to Hua Hin where she denied being involved and was released without charge to return to nearby ‘Oxley House’. Police meanwhile attempted quite successfully to keep a lid on the scandal by asking local newspapers to control their forums, which had drawn out angry comments from local foreign residents. They claimed the comments could interfere with their enquiries.
But in October 29th after intervention by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva three people were arrested for attempted murder and they named Oxley’s wife as the person who commissioned it.

Two cousins and gunman in white T-shirt - Hua Hin News

Cousins Yuthawan Areesawat, 36, and Sarat Areesawat, 41 from Chumpon, South Thailand, and Eakanan Jitmahima, from Pathum Thani, Central Thailand, admitted they had attempted the murder of Whiting with a .38 after being paid 200,000 Thai baht (just 4000 pounds) by Mrs. Oxley at one of her other homes in Hua Hin. Police easily tracked down the money transfer.
The men also admitted to setting fire to Donald Whiting’s car for a fee of 600 pounds.
But Janpen, who apparently had never spoken to Donald Whiting, or his partner Dolly Damson, Vice Chancellor of Stamford International University in Thailand, refused to implicate her husband.

Janpen Oxley cuts a smart appearance at Bangkok South Criminal Court. On a conspiracy to murder charge she is likely to still be on bail in years to come

Donald Whiting is dumbstruck. He said: “The only person I had a row with was Darren Oxley. He was threatening me. He told me some harm could come to me. I could prove he was cheating me and was due in court the day after the shooting to testify against him.
“Sure his wife is guilty but I am sure she would never have ordered my shooting without her husband’s say so. Foreign builders and estate agents have been holding expatriates to ransom in Hua Hin. Many have lost their live savings because of scams.
“How can this Briton Darren Oxley even be allowed to live in Thailand? I have written to the Crown Prosecution Service and police and get nothing from them. The British Embassy will tell me nothing.”
Janpen Oxley, who entered a monastery and changed her name to Napatsorn while on bail, has not implicated her husband. It is difficult for foreigners to get bail on murder charges. The Thai legal system can be cumbersome and dysfunctional given the right circumstances. All the Thai defendants, bar the actual shooter Eakanan have got bail.
The trial could last over two years, sitting just one day a month. If Mrs. Oxley, also known as ‘Sarah’ is acquitted she can appeal and her bail extended. If she loses her appeal than she can appeal to the Supreme Court – the appeals process can take as long as eight years.
Said Dolly Samson, 62: “We want Janpen to feel the full weight of the law. We want Darren Oxley brought to justice. I am concerned for Donald’s health and whether he will be around to see justice is done.”

Gunmen Eakanan did not make it to the special court

Despite intervention by Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva for a speedy resolution of the case, when the Sunday Mirror attended a special hearing for Donald Whiting and Dolly to give evidence at the Bangkok South Criminal Court, as they cannot travel, the hearing had to be adjourned for three months.
Everyone was there except the accused gunman. The prison authorities had forgotten to send the assassin Eakanan to face his accusers.
So what then did the British authorities do? In statements to the local press South Yorkshire Police claimed firstly that they were seeking to extradite Oxley and then that there were problems with extradition.
When we asked the Yorkshire Police under the Freedom Of Information Act whether they had actually tried to get Oxley back to the UK they refused to say either way, explaining: “To give a statement of the reasons why neither confirming nor denying is appropriate in this case, would itself involve the disclosure of exempt information, therefore under Section 17(4), no explanation can be given.
This should not be taken as an inference that the information you have requested, does or does not exist”.

The Sunday Mirror story

This is civil service double-speak meaning as this is an ongoing enquiry ‘we do not have to say anything’. This has left Donald Whiting puzzled as to how British justice works, let alone the Thai system.

Enquiries with the Thai authorities showed that there never ever been a request for extradition which was confirmed by the CPS, who have now destroyed Oxley’s file. This is despite a suggestion by the South Yorkshire Police force to the local press that the opposite was the case.

A CPS spokesman said: “Due to the type and age of the offence, the file on Oxley has been destroyed, in accordance with CPS policy on retention. Oxley left the country before sentencing, so should he return to the UK, he would be arrested and brought to court to be sentenced. There is no record of any steps taken to extradite Oxley. As there was no extradition started, the Thai authorities were not involved”.

Said wheelchair bound Donald Whiting: “It’s difficult to hold any respect for the British authorities. This says little for British justice or the reputation of the British police.”

Darren Oxley has strongly denied the allegations made against him. He insists he had nothing to do with the shooting of Donald Whiting.

“Donald Whiting had a case against my wife, but it was not due in court for a couple of months. He was actually suing another developer. I was never wanted in connection with the shooting of Donald Whiting. I have even been to police and they told me not to waste their time”.

(Donald Whiting admits he did in fact have issues with a Greek developer in Hua Hin)

“This is being exaggerated out of all proportion. I am being made to look like the Krays (an old London crime family of three brothers, who specialised in extortion, torture and murder, but who loved their mum, and donated to charity).

“As it stands I was not convicted in the British court and as such am still innocent. Yes, police may want to talk to me if I go back. But their case against me is weak. A lot of it is hearsay from other people in the dock.

“Further Donald Whiting has had problems with other builders and even tried to extort money from them, yet it is me who has been labelled the criminal.”

Meanwhile police in South Yorkshire are boasting ‘another significant fall in quarterly crime figures’.

Legal Note: This site has been updated and corrected where necessary. Everybody has of course a right of reply. In particular I have removed some of the details from Darren Oxley’s passport as I would not wish to be party to any crime or indeed for Darren Oxley to be the subject of crime. He wrote expressing his fear that he was ”wide open for anyone to use my details for anything such as fraud”.……

On her Majesty’s Pattaya Service - continued - UPDATED

Published

on February 6, 2010

Link to Brighton Country Court

. 3 Comments

UPDATE: Peter Storrow was discharged of his bankruptcy on May 24 2010

This is a blog only

So there I was singing ‘The wheels of the buss go round round, round, round’ to daughter Annie when my computer whirrs, coughs, spits, rings a bell and up comes that name again, flashing on screen…Peter Storrow.

Blog at www.andrew-drummond.com

Readers of this blog will remember his name from late last year. He’s the upcoming supremo of the commercial gay sex scene in Pattaya, who has told Britain’s Customs & Revenue and the courts that he is penniless and lives in the Malaysia hotel in Soi Ngam Duplee in Bangkok!

His Pattaya mansion apparently belongs to a friend.

Storrow also got his picture taken with British Ambassador Quentin Quayle, along with others affectionately known locally as the ‘Gay McMafia’.

Commercial attache, Ambassador, Gordon May, Glen Campbell, Jim Lumsden, Peter Storrow and some hotelier who wants to get into every picture. The Ambassador should have paid heed to his Embassy's 'Know Before You Go' campaign

________________________________________

Last year Storrow was declared bankrupt. This is one of Britain’s new industries. People come from far and wide to the UK to be declared bankrupt because they are automatically discharged after a year.

Did I say automatically? Well, some mistake here. Storrow’s representative went to Brighton Court on January 25th to request his discharge papers. … and never got them.

Seems Customs & Revenue do not believe his tales of poverty and Storrow is not going to be discharged all that easily.

: Everybody wants to go to the ball and join the line-up with these British Vice Consuls. No just joking. That’s Storrow up front

_________________________________________________________________________

Customs & Revenue apparently monitored Storrow on a trip back to the UK last November ostensibly for a birthday party in Brighton. (He tells them I gather that he never goes back to the UK) Back in Britain there were a lot of heated exchanges with his partners in profit, and clumsy attempts to move assets into different names. There are properties all over the place, Sussex, London, companies in the Isle of Man etc. I could go on.

But it’s not only the Customs & Revenue Storrow has to worry about. Both the Met Police and SOCA (the Serious Organised Crime Agency) also want to come to the ball.

They are very interested in Storrow’s relationship with Lenny ‘The Loon’ Poole, who is a guy you don’t mess with. ….. Well I suppose you can now actually… as he’s dead.

Lenny is an old time crime figure, dating back, well possibly even to the 50’s. His job was to launder cash for crime syndicates. Well maybe that’s too posh a phrase. Let’s just say ‘the boys’, in South London.

A lot of the crime was white collar crime apparently - not stick-ups but more of the VAT fraud type - through various companies, some established in London House, Croydon. Looks like Customs and Revenue may have lost out in many ways.

A lot of the cash gains apparently went through our Mr. Storrow, initially to Spain, where Storrow also has a toreador called ‘Miguel’ apparently, and more recently to Thailand. Of course the local police probably welcome this new source of income.

Lenny’s widow ‘Linda’ , aka ‘Loopy’, likes to keep monetary affairs in the family. She has failed to make a number of appointments with the Customs and Revenue for a variety of reasons, creaking bones, a cough, runny nose, varicose veins, broken zimmer frame, ‘Just don’t feel up to it boys’ etc.

Glen Campbell and bodyguard (in frock and wig) at Pattaya Gay Festival

____________________________________________________________________

Anyway to add to Storrow’s worries is the fact that his side-kick in Pattaya, Glen Campbell – no he cannot sing ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ with any conviction- is himself being taken to court by Customs and Revenue to be declared bankrupt on February 10th.

Glen, aka ‘Cleo’, has a company (well Storrow’s really) called aptly Asp(land) Ltd., with a chap called Lord Andrew Dunton. Yes, you could not make this up, and it’s a name that could come back and bite him in the…..a…nether regions. But this story is out of this world in many ways. One of the properties Customs and Revenue have been looking at is in Mimbridge, near Chobham, Surrey, at the exact spot where the Martians landed in H.G. Wells’ ’War of the Worlds’.

Andy Dunton...Lord? And Lord Andrew Dunton? Well I can’t tell you too much about this chap (left) today but he is not one of England’s ‘Stately Homos’*. Used to have a pub in Brighton and worked as a doorman at Brighton’s gay Revenge Club, I gather. Wait he was also chairman of Brighton Gay Pride and according to the Brighton Argus and Brighton internet gay columnist Rita Snatch was once stabbed in Brighton and went on Meridien TV to talk about homophobia.

God, is this exciting? Will it never end? Storrow is busily consolidating himself in Pattaya trusting, with his lawyers, that Customs and Revenue will not be able to see their way through the endless pole-dancing Somchais and Somsaks on his company records.

Of course his cause is not helped by his best mates, Gordon May and Jim Lumsden, who kicked off ‘Boyztown’ in Pattaya twenty odd years ago, and were friends of the late departed Scotsman Martin Frutin, ex-Pattaya Rotary, Pattaya Masons, and Edinburgh Sheriff court where he was convicted of possessing child pornography.

Customs and Revenue apparently have a video-tape of street party during last November’s Gay Festival in which Lumsden puts an end to any doubt as to who owns five shop houses in a row, or about half of Boyztown.

Jim Lumsden giving his oratory at the Pattaya Gay Festival

______________________________________________________________________

Dressed in a frock - and believe you me, after dozens of face lifts this guy does look better made up as a woman - Lumsden pointed to Storrow’s properties and told the assembled crowd that the shells of Storrow’s properties within eyesight were alone worth over 50 million baht…..just about the size of the cash Revenue & Customs are looking for…(But they say they are ready to revise upwards)

(Lumsden had incidentally been introduced by a compere who joked: ‘We all know Madame Jim, don’t we? Its always good to see a new face here though” )

As Storrow (left) listens grimly

_________________________________________________________________________

Perhaps Lumsden knew he was being filmed. He did not bat an eyelid to the cameraman. Anyway Madame Jim as he is known has come into a bit of luck of late. He he has always publicly decried under aged sexual encounters in the gay scene in Pattaya and has even written about it on the net - but he is a smart guy with a nose for a good deal.

Last year Britons Robert Horsman and Malcolm Payne, 59, were arrested together with a German and American in Pattaya in Operation Naga, conducted by the Children and Womens Division of the Royal Thai Police and with assistance from Britain’s CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection) unit.

The operation was trumpeted by CEOP Chief Jim Gamble as a triumph of international police co-operation. “We share a clear, joint commitment to prevent harm to children. The Royal Thai Police have demonstrated an unerring commitment to making Thailand a hostile environment for UK offenders and CEOP will continue to proactively support that commitment”

Anyway Jim might have been being a little optimistic. Payne has long since been let out of the coop, and others too I am told. But Payne, who used to run the ‘Regulation’ gay bondage shop in Islington, N. London, had a house to sell ‘on the darkside’, and apparently quickly too. In stepped Jim with an offer of 1/3 of the asking price, so I am told. Going, going gone. Now that is what I call back-scratching. The house will of course be in a company name.

Back to the Pattaya Gay Festival. Storrow could have got up and pointed to the other side of the street featuring ‘Boyz Boyz Boyz’ and made some comments on how that little empire was built. But that would no doubt have led to handbags at dawn.

Finally Kevin Quill, a man who without any doubt at all was framed on drugs charges, is to be released from prison hospital in Bangkok in just a few days and transferred home. Once in England he will testify about Storrow and other related matters. It was Quill who sold Storrow his business in the first place.

Kevin Quill - Man with a vengeance

What was it again? Standard Chartered?

Just how Storrow and his local police pals, square off against any investigations or requests from the UK is anybody’s guess, I suppose. But nothing comes for free.

*This is a strictly non sexist blog. But old jokes are allowed.

This is a blog only
On her Majesty’s Pattaya Service (2009)

Getaway at last to the eastern seaboard, where a chap called Peter Storrow is celebrating his birthday in his gay venue called the ‘Copa Show Bar’. I don’t go in, but my man-boy does. I take a look around the street and see some chaps who also look definitely out of place in Soi Pattayaland 3.

clubs-and-vice
It turns out Scotland Yard’s CO14, the Clubs and Vice Unit, have been giving certain places in Pattaya the once over with a number of ranking Thai officials from Bangkok.
Not only that, but Pattayaland Soi 3 has also been attracting the interest of another arm of British law enforcement, even more influential and powerful than CO14.
CO14 ‘Keeping London Safer’ could have a field day with Brits in Pattaya I suspect. The other unit, working for her Majesty’s Customs & Revenue should just set up office!

Birthday boy Peter Storrow left with Glenn Campbell and friend

The Yard guys have been staying in Bangkok at the downmarket Plaza Athenee - well downmarket compared to where the boys from Customs & Revenue are staying - the Millenium Hilton.
Still all this activity outside the Copa Show bar got me thinking. So I googled and googled so to speak, and then I came up with this wonderful photograph below.
Yes, it’s our Ambassador His Excellency Quinton Quayle, with a chap called Gordon May, another called Jim Lumsden, a chap called Glen Campbell, no not the singer, and Peter Storrow the owner of the Copa Bar, and a place called Splash (bit like a seafood restaurant, but where you can pick your boy from a water tank; crabs too I suppose) He also owns a gay gym, and a small hotel attached to his bars.

Introducing Ambassador Quayle to the chorus line of Pattaya's commercial gay sex industry

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has one of the biggest gay groups in the British civil service. Quinton is not a member but it’s nice to see him showing solidarity.
But not to put too fine a point on it, here is our Ambassador posing with all the Brits who control or have controlled the biggest slice of the gay commercial sex scene in Pattaya for the last 20 years. Still all power to ‘The British Chamber -Eastern Seaboard Members Cleansing Sub-Committee.

No commerical sex business here - just Thailand's Deadliest Catch

(Actually accusing anyone of running a sex business in Pattaya could be libellous in the Thai context. A special enquiry by Chonburi Police has revealed, and I have a copy of the report, that there is absolutely no sign of commercial sexual activity at Boyz Boyz Boyz in Pattayland Soi 3, and I am sure the rest of the bar and club owners in Pattaya can secure similar statements)
May and Lumsden are the controversial creators of Boyztown and set up ‘Boyz Boyz Boyz’ and the Ambiance Hotel with £1/4 m cash they had earned or ‘misappropriated’ ( depends which version you want to believe) from an Edinburgh Property Company called Teague Homes in the late 1980’s.

Ian MacDonald, in blue, died two days after this picture was taken

Two people who invested into Lumsden and May’s businesses in Pattaya suffered terrible misfortunes. First Iain Macdonald, the 27-yr-old gay stepson of the Provost of Inverness (The English equivalent is Mayor) died in a fire in the Ambiance Hotel after bequeathing, strangely enough, his 250,000 pound shareholding in Thailand to Gordon May’s Thai boyfriend. (The phoney will here was signed by James Lumsden)

Gordon May and local Mason

The family in Scotland never got their money back of course. Macdonald’s mother Eileen made this affidavit in which she made it quite clear what she thought happened to the cash.

Kevin Quill while out on bail thinking he could prosecute his partners

Then, second, along came Kevin Quill from West Yorkshire, who invested 1/3 million pounds with May and Lumsden in a business called Patika -with bar-gym-hotel-and the water tank.

Kevin Quill has never been a drugs user but was arrested in the hotel’s taxi on his way to the airport on a trip back to England. When police opened his cases they found a massive haul of Benson & Hedges cigarettes and inside one packed in one carton they found almost 100 yaa baa methamphetamine tablets.

While in jail awaiting trial Quill found that he had been stripped of the directorship of his own company, his apartment had been let out for rent, and that even his sister who came to visit was being charged for the use of his own car and driver!

The British Customs Liaison Officer at the British Embassy suspected immediately that Quill had been framed and the Assistant Commissioner of the Royal Thai Police in Bangkok General Nopadol Somboonsap conducted an investigation, which confirmed everybody’s suspicions.

The Embassy presented the famous ‘Deryck Fisher Letter ‘ to the court……to absolutely no affect. No consular official would testify.

Quill was convicted, acquitted, and convicted again at the Supreme Court after coming back from England for the verdict. He is currently in Khlong Prem Prison Hospital with throat cancer.

He eventually got his property back on the condition he withdrew cases against Lumsden and May. And he claims that the policeman who enthusiastically took his complaint never proceeded with the case or passed it onto the prosecutor.

Jim Lumsden (right) A good summary of the story was published in the Glasgow Herald under the headline THE STRANGE TALE OF TRANVESTITES, CROOKED COPS, A MUTILATED BODY AND TWO SCOTS KNOWN AS THE GAY MACMAFIA

I was sued after the Bangkok Post ran an investigation - already published in the UK - headed: ‘Lock Stock and Two Smoking Boyz’. The issue continues here. Thankfully a whip round among journalists and editors in the UK and assistance from the BAJ have paid my costs.

The case continues and will probably run another ten years!

Anyway as the new guy on the block - he has actually taken over from May and Lumsden as the big man in ‘Boyztown’ - Storrow counts the two Scots amongst his close, friends and has been spotted dining with them all over town. So why the sudden interest from Customs and Revenue?

Well the answer lies at Brighton Court where in January this year Storrow was declared bankrupt. The poor guy does not have a penny, or does he? He gave the court an address in Soi Ngam Duplee in Bangkok. Actually he gave the court the address of the Malaysia hotel, which has its own cottage industry I gather. But in Pattaya he seems to have built this the house below in Soi Kowtelo 4 - actually its two houses - one is for the maids I guess. But he can’t own all six cars in the forecourt, I suppose.

Storrow's compound with 2 houses five cars

Then of course Storrow has got his club, hotel and fish tank. Customs and Revenue want 1 million UK pounds from him. I don’t know how they came to this estimate because as far as I can deter, H.M. Customs and Revenue do not have a record of Storrow paying any money anywhere.

At least I paid tax for twenty years in the UK, and am doing so again, so that some Pattaya Brits can get their disability allowances.

Front door cop

Anyway Storrow should be cautious - and indeed I guess he is. He has a picture of his local police colonel on his front gate. Now that is some service.

But if I were Storrow I would be cautious. Whoever wanted his money, the money he does not have that is, could just grab it, abstractly I suppose, and say afterwards well he never had it anyway, as he is bankrupt and here is the court order. Get my drift.

Goodness knows how Storrow travels business class.

Still these ‘Solvency Practitioners’ are ruthless I am told and will leave no stone unturned. They have been finding stuff all over the place. I’d be off to the Cayman Islands if I had enough for the fare., or take Thai citizenship.

May and Lumsden by the way are in the Chamber of Commerce as directors of Baan Suay Siam Co., Ltd. Business: Hotel. Where? Have not a clue.

I did not kill teenagers - says retired British ‘banker’

Published

on February 6, 2010

Financial Investment Fraud: HK SFC adds name to warned list

. 1 Comment

From Andrew Drummond,
Bangkok, February 3 2010
A retired British banker told yesterday how he raced against death after two gunmen ambushed him and his family on an isolated road in the Philippines.
But the former RBS-Natwest executive denied reports that he was responsible for the deaths of the two teenagers, aged 17, and 19, who were later found dead at the same spot.
Public school educated Richard Bell, 60, born in the Indian tea region of Assam but brought up in London, told how with his foot on the accelerator of his Kia Sorento he raced against the men, as they overtook him on a motorcycle near the city of Cebu.
“They pumped a few bullets into my car hitting the frames of the door and then raced on ahead. But they lost control and I saw them hit the roadside barrier and crash into some concrete.
“As I passed, I saw that their motorcycle was a wreck and thank goodness for that. I realised they could not follow me. But even as I passed, one let off a clip at me. A bullet bounced off the hood, hit the windscreen, and a chard of glass hit my forehead.
“I kept driving flat out for about half an hour straight to the provincial police headquarters.”
Afterwards police found the bodies of teenagers cousins Borja, 17, and Harold, 18, Flores. Their injuries were reported as consistent to having been involved in a road accident.
But said Mr. Bell: “There’s a lot of tosh been written in the local papers. I did not kill anybody. They say my hands have tested positive for having gunpowder residue, maybe they suspected I shot at my own car, but that its quite natural I should have gunpoweder residue I suppose as I picked out and handed the spent bullets to police.
“They also seem to be saying that I confessed to running over the two victims. That’s not true. I gather two bodies have been found, but I did not cause any deaths. They have my car. There is no damage to the front. They crashed the bike themselves and one was still well enough to shoot at me afterwards.
“ They could just have easily have been knocked over by the beer and coke truck which I passed earlier.
“The only thing I know for sure is that these guys were out to kill me and my family and I went like a bat out of hell to get away.”
Mr. Bell, full names Frank Richard Bell, said he was an executive for both National Westminster and RBS working in London and the United States, before he retired in the Philippines. It is also understood he worked in the financial sector in Hong Kong in an independent capacity.
He said he had been away for the weekend visiting the family of his 28-yr-old Filipina wife, Juriza, together with their nanny and four-year-old daughter Savanna, and were returning home when the attack happened.
“Out of town the road can become dangerous.”
Witnesses have confirmed to police that Bell was ambushed. But the father of one of the dead teenagers, Borja Flores, was reported in the local press as having had an affair with Bell’s wife. They both come from the same district.
Mr. Bell said: “It seems I was targeted. I don’t know why. I have heard it all. The press here make it up as they go along.”
Police Superintendent Rudolfo Albotra said today: “ Our enquries are continuing. We have yet to receive a satisfactory explanation as to why these two young men are dead.

NB: Although NatWest, RBS, are unable to confirm that Frank Richard Bell used to work for them, Frank Richard Bell of Cebu, I am sure would wish to disassociate himself from the Frank Richard Bell of Hong Kong, a man associated with ‘boiler rooms’ whom the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commisssion put on their warned list.

The newspaper you can trust would not say boo to a goose! Updated March 09

Published

on February 3, 2010

. 11 Comments

Blog at www.andrew-drummond.com

THOUSANDS OF IDIOTS DETECTED
Blog only

Knock! Knock! Anybody there?
They don’t get it do they. The total combined intellect of the Bangkok Post has not yet cottoned on to the fact that the GT-200 is a total hoax, as are the Sniffex, ADE651, and Alpha 6 bomb/drugs/ insurgent detectors which Thailand has bought by the cart-load.

I mean who would buy a machine, powered by a human and nothing else which can detect anything from drugs to explosives, or even a choc-ice if you programme the nonexistent chip! The only things these machines can detect are idiots.
And who would pay US$18,000 for each machine? Well, China, Thailand, Iraq, and Mexico for starters. Did I hear someone say ‘kickback mountain!’ Well,you could be forgiven. The recently arrested Jimbo, manufacturer of the ADE651, complained: ‘But I only got 11 million dollars!’ – of a US$80 million deal with Iraq – the rest, he said, went on commissions and training. Some commissions! Some training! But lets not apportion blame yet, says Prime Minister Abhisit.
So anyway out comes the Bangkok Post today and with a report by writers Anucha Charoenpo and King-oua Laohong. Yes it takes two of them to come out with this grey drivel. This after endless days of the paper quoting different experts as to how the machines really work.
“The cabinet is concerned about the detector’s reliability and consistency and invited soldiers, security experts and drugs officers to provide information on its use at its meeting yesterday.
The invited guests expressed satisfaction with the detectors, but the cabinet wanted more academic research to support their claims”.
It’s going to take them a week to find out what BBC Newsnight established with both the GT200 and ADE651 in about 3 minutes. While we are not going to take the matter forward with this sort of reporting, full marks to the Bangkok Post for its opinion poll, possibly one of the most nonsensical polls I have ever seen.

bangkokpostfool

It posed the question: ‘Do you think the devices should be tested?’
A staggering 33% said No. (the figure representing this group has lost only half his legs)
14 per cent said ‘Don’t know’ (the figure representing this group looks like he has been ripped in half by a claymore)
And only 53% said yes. (And this guy is fine)

So I guess we need diagrams to spell it out :-).
But look how mellow people are taking this while fellow citizens, soldiers and police, are being killed in south Thailand. It’s almost as if they do not care. But isn’t it sweet that according to the Bangkok Post 47 per cent of people questioned did not want an ‘end to their doubts’.

That’s easily solved. Just take out a subscription to the Bangkok Post!

Update Feb 15: Well since I wrote this. The Bangkok Post has been trundling along still not totally convinced. Well one writer in tjhe Post Database section called it an outright fraud, and a scientist rambled on about nothing, but clearly the editor does not read his own paper.

In Sunday’s Bangkok Post - well the splash actually - Pansak Siriruchatapong, the man who is supposed to take these machines apart and test them for the government is quoted as saying he cannot take them apart because the purchasers signed a confidentiality agreement!

GT-200 courtesy of Pantip Plaz dot com

The government therefore cannot disclose anything about how these machines (don’t) work.

You can’t make this up. However I suspect on this occasion the ‘foreign’ editor of the Sunday Bangkok Post is having a private joke.

And there’s more: “Jehrming Tohtayong a member of the ‘National Security Panel’ said members had discussed the prospects of holding laboratory tests, but said they were concerned this would violate the seller’s intellectual rights”

Some National Security Panel!

(Reminds me of the Danish prospective PM who was asked what he would do if his country was invaded. “Pick up the phone and surrender! No on second thoughts the Danish politician is a lot smarter)

Some intellectual rights!

Oh and here’s the link to the original BBC Newsnight report. The second report where the GT200 is taken apart has already been shown on Thai TV Channel 3. And a Thai military man has already admitted on Thai TV that there is nothing on the GT200.

So what’s happening in Britain, where Health and Safety issues mean that you cannot get an aspirin in some hotels, to Gary Bolton the boss of Global Technical which produces the GT200? Nothing at all it seems. So far he is laughing all the way to the bank…of the West Indies.

FOOTNOTE: In fairness to the Bangkok Post on March 7th 2010 Spectrum published a much fuller report concluding I guess that the GT200 does not work. Though of course in its ‘even handed way’ quoted several military who though it did. Buried in its report however was a quote from general Genera Pathompong who had taken a GT 200 apart and basically found nothing.

British banker ambushed by gunmen - two dead

Published

on February 3, 2010

. 0 Comments

From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok, Feb 2 2009

Daily Telegraph

An elderly Briton, who described himself as a retired banker, said he ran down two teenagers killing them both when they ambushed him with a gun on the island of Cebu in the Philippines, police said today.

In a bid to protect his 28-yr-old Filipina wife Juriza, and daughter, Savanna, aged 4, Manchester born, Frank Bell, 60, said he ran his Kia Sorento over the teenagers, one of whom, it was claimed, was having an affair with his wife.

Today two separate police squads were investigating the circumstances of the deaths, and the relationship of the two dead youths , Borja and Harold Flores, aged 17 and 19, to Mrs. Bell. Both are Philppine nationals but Borja also has a US passport.

In a statement to Cebu Provincial Police Bell – full name Richard Frank Bell, said that he was driving when he was overtaken by the youths on a motorcycle and shot at several times.

City Lights Garden Condos

The youths also rode on ahead, it was alleged, parked up, and fired several more shots as he approached. “According to Bell, he hit the motorcycle where the gunman and the minor were, and they were flung to the side of the road,” said Sr. Police Supt. Erson Digal.

After he reported the incident to police they found three slugs in his car and went to the scene to find the bodies. Police Superintendent Rudolfo Albotra (Jnr) said by phone from the Provincial Police Headquarters: “ There appears to be a discrepancy in the story as to where the bodies were knocked over and found. Mr. Bell said he ran the boys over in self defence.

“Police in Balamban where the incident occurred, are also looking at allegations made by the family of the boy, Borja, that he was having an affair with Mr. Bell’s wife. Tests have been done on his hands to check for gun powder residue. We need to rule out the possibility that he fired the shots himself.”

At the City Lights Garden condominium a management official said Bell had been resident in Cebu for two years and before that in Manila, after leaving Hong Kong where he was he was in ‘ banking’.

Ouch! First salvo in Pattaya newspaper war?

Published

on January 28, 2010

http://www.update.dk/cfje/lovbasen.nsf/ID/LB03872534

. 8 Comments

BUT TRUCE NOW DECLARED!

Blog Only(UPDATED July 2010)

Pattaya Times accused Pattaya People boss of involvement in ‘gold share scam’ - then ‘withdraws’ allegation.

Pattaya Daily News publishes link to ‘criminal record’ of Pattaya People boss - then withdraws link.

The first shots have been be fired in a Pattaya newspaper war. A new-comer on the scene, ‘The Pattaya Times’ engineered by an ubiquitous American called Drew Noyes - aka ‘Fringe Benefit’ - has accused Niels ‘Istedgade’ Colov publisher of the Pattaya People, and boss of Pattaya People TV as a man involved in a gold scam which has defrauded foreigners out of millions.

And then a couple of days ago the Pattaya Daily News, published links to a site, which identified Colov as a former pimp with convictions of living off immoral earnings, unlawful coercion, vandalism and receiving stolen goods.

Colov is also the leader of the Foreign Police Volunteers in Pattaya.

At the end of its report of the death of Martin Frutin, 69, the Pattaya Daily News (which incidentally seems to have been alone in pointing out that the Scots millionaire and man about town, who hob-nobbed with Pattaya publishers and worked for Colov, also had a conviction for possessing child pornography) invited comments. ’Somchai’ posted the following link.

You have to use google translate if you don’t read Danish

The details about Niels Storm Martens Colov come in what purpots to be a Danish legal judgment on a case in which Colov sued two journalists for calling him a heroin trafficker and other horrible things like running pyramid scams. The journalists lost their case.

Lawyers for Colov are seen to admit on this site: “It is true that in 1970 he was convicted for violence, unlawful coercion, receiving stolen goods, vandalism and pimping in Vesterbro’s porn environment”.

But Mr. Colov said he was now an prominent member of the community, charity giver, devout Buddhist, former Rotary club, President etc.

Well bless his cotton socks. What a remarkable achievement and what a tribute to Thailand and the power of Buddhism and vegetarianism.

The Cop

Niels is also a Scout master and organises international scouting jamborees - the sort of places we needed to keep Frutin out of, I guess.

But this is Pattaya where truth is all elusive. More than anywhere else these rags become the servants of their masters whims, opening doors to the local hierarchy and grovelling to police and judiciary. My library is full pictures of local editors sitting down to dine with people I would not go near with the proverbial barge pole, all taken from their ‘Social’ and ‘High Society’ pages!

Colov denies all the above allegations. And indeed there seems to be a conspiracy afoot.

And I have to state unequivocably that I am making no suggestion whatsoever that Neil Colov is up to any criminal activitity in Thailand, nor do I have any evidence of such. To Niels I say, the family resort Pattaya needs you to draw from your rich experiences and continue to contribute to the local community.

Nor indeed do I have personal evidence as to his former years in Denmark apart from some very faded newspaper cuttings.

A lot of things have been going on behind the scenes.

Drew Noyes of the ‘Pattaya Times’ accused him of beng involved in a massive gold shares fraud. More specifically he suggested Colov was a silent partner of Lance Shaw, an international confidence trickster who was scandalously released on bail at the end of last year by Pattaya Court. Shaw has openly boasted that he pays off the authorities, and taunts his victims. (Noyes has now withdrawn these allegations - July 2010. At Neils Colov’s request I am more than happy to point this out. But there is still a disgruntled defrauded foreigner out there in the modified story at this link to the Pattaya Times.

Drew Noyes, the man behind the Pattaya Times, has been referred to as ‘Fringe Benefit’ because he seems to get himself invited to every party in town. His name is all over the local press, not because he is the guy on the fringe of the crowd who never seems to get his round in, as somebody has suggested. He is a man with a mission. To make money I think and be adored? Well, that was my first impression after doing a ‘Google’, but I have now spoken to Drew, who insists he is really all about making Pattaya a better place.

” You won’t see endless dead bodies, or any for that matter, in the newspaper I manage and edit,” he says, which is a great relief.

The broadsheet ‘Pattaya Times’ is apparently ‘the biggest English language newspaper in Thailand outside Bangkok’ and is distributed in 485 locations on the eastern seaboard. I guess I must be a little out of touch as I have not seen a copy, but Drew has promised to put me right. Drew also says that with nine kids he does not have a lot of time for socialising but does go to the big events ‘especially if asked by someone of great power’. He has suggested we meet up at a forthcoming Breast Cancer fund-raiser but as its called ‘Pink Polo’ I may have to desist. I guess also the boss of Kingpower will be there.

Anyway newspaper bosses are having a go at each other. In England this only seems to happen when Editors steal each other’s girlfriends ( e.g. Donald Trelford of the Observer v Andrew Neil Sunday Times, in, ironically, the era of the ‘Asian Babes’) So welcome indeed to the world of Pattaya journalism where in the pursuit of truth one can freely show video and post reports of of foreign tourists and residents in all sort of post death situations without any thought whatsoever of their families or concept of human dignity, except thank goodness apparently - the Pattaya Times.

The journalist

Don’t go to war boys. It will be messy. Anything could happen. There are too many secrets out there. The next thing you know Rotary will be going to war with the Masons with machetes, the Pattaya ExPat Club, fighting the Pattaya City ExPat Club with zimmer frames , Tourist Police Assistants in a War against Volunteer Police…with pepper spray, Boyztown-Sunnee Plaza with flailing leotards… its endless.

Eveybody has his secrets. Best keep them…………. Or contact me/us here.

Footnote: Martin Frutin was a ‘respected member’ of the Masons and Pattaya Rotary Club.

Niels Colov is a former President of Rotary Club - Jomtien & Pattaya, current President of the Pattaya Expats Club…….and has a law firm.

Drew Noyes is a financial consultant , formed the opposition Pattaya City Expats Club…….and has a law firm.

This is incidentally is what their rival PDN appears to consider ‘investigative journalism’. (This link shows a condescending Thai reporter/editor following what she considers a rather stupid foreign reporter about town. Very racist and patronising, but the author does not realise it. The author also misses the story, but she does not realise that either)

Coming soon: ”Dear Chief Reporter, was it necessary to use that electric stun gun while interviewing that British tourist?”

Thailand hides weapon of mass destruction

Published

on January 27, 2010

. 7 Comments

Blog only

Today a pink and red faced son William Matthew Drummond, younger brother to Annie 2 years 4 months, made his debut shortly after 7 am, to the delight of his mother Pat and father journalist Andrew Drummond, at a hospital in Thailand, near a 7/11, a canal, a motorcycle queue, and a lot of overhead wiring.

WMD? On second thoughts make that Matthew William Drummond. Mother is doing fine. Father and Annie are pooped.

Flamboyant Scot on Yard child sex abuse watch list dies in Thailand

Published

on January 27, 2010

The Commission A good summary of the affair

. 3 Comments

‘His adopted son was by his side’

From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok - January 26 2010
A flamboyant Scots businessman Martin Frutin, who left Scotland after being convicted of possessing child pornography in his Edinburgh mansion died in the Thai resort of Pattaya early today.

Martin Frutin with Scots musician Frankie Miller - May 2005

Martin Frutin, one time dancer, rock group manager, and travel agent, who was convicted of possessing indecent images of young boys, was reported to have died with his Thai ‘adopted son’ by his side.
He had been in the Bangkok Pattaya hospital for the last three months, with complications from pancreatitis.
Frutin, 69, formerly of Ravelston Dykes, Edinburgh, left Scotland permanently for Thailand more than fifteen years ago, eventually selling Frutin Travel, one of Scotland’s largest independent travel agencies.
Originally born in Giffnock, the son of Glasgow cinema manager, in 1962 Frutin won the ‘European Cha-cha, Jive and Twist Championships’ with his dance partner June Miller, from Pollock.
Dancing with the June Miller again in front of the Queen Mother at Glasgow’s, Alhambra Theatre, with a high kick he accidentally hit his partner on the head and himself ended up in the orchestra pit.
Thus he went into the music business and managed Scottish groups including the ‘Hitchhikers’, and Frankie Miller and the Delljacks. His assistant at the time was, the now better known, John Reid, from Govan, who went on to become the manager of Elton John before a serious financial bust-up with the superstar.
Frutin’s move to Thailand, which he had been visiting since the Sixties, and where he had already bought property, may have been hastened by the raid on his house in Ravelston Dykes. He was later convicted and fined 500 pounds at Edinburgh Sheriff Court in June 1996 after admitting the offence.
However Frutin remained on a British police paedophile watch list (before the days of the Paedophile Register) and shortly after he relocated, the National Criminal Intelligence Service – NCIS - were notified by Interpol in Bangkok that Frutin’s address , The Penthouse, Jomtien Hills Resort, in Pattaya had been searched in May 1996, a month before his Edinburgh conviction, and that again a number of indecent images of young children had been found.

martin-frutin-ncis11

Pattaya police took no action on the case, and six months later in December 1996, NCIS met with and then made written representations to the Thai Embassy in London giving details of Frutin and six other known or suspected British paedophiles living and working in Thailand. Fruiton was No.4 on their list.

martin-frutin-ncis22
Frutin was suspected of having contributed to local police funds. From that moment on he began a new life and rose to become a prominent member of Pattaya society, hobnobbing with the owners of the local English language newspapers, also assisting as a police interpreter, during the arrest of other foreigners.
He became known as Somsak-Martin, and found that his background was also of little hindrance to him becoming a television host, performing with comedy teeth and wigs, and, despite objections from people who knew his background, also a prominent member of the local Masonic Lodge, Pattaya West Winds and the Pattaya-Jomtien Rotary Club.
For the last year, before he took ill, he had teamed up with a Danish businessmen called Neils ‘Istegade’ Colov, also a police volunteer. He joined Colov’s local television channel ‘Pattaya People TV’ where he presented his own show giving ‘tourists tips’.
He drove a red Rolls Royce and went on to build himself a gated mansion called ‘Marfru Palace’ which had four home cinemas and a swimming pool into which he could slide from his second floor bedroom.
A close friend in Pattaya said today: “Martin died close to midnight last night after a long illness. His Scottish nephew and adopted Thai family were at his side. No arrangements have been made yet but it is understood that he will be cremated at the Jewish cemetery in Bangkok.”
By ‘adopted family’, said the spokesman for Martin Frutin, ‘I mean his adopted Thai son and staff.”
Mr. Colov’s ‘Pattaya People’ newspaper reported today: “ Always larger than life, Somsak Martin could put a smile on everyone’s face with his unique style of wit that genuinely touched the hearts of many. A piece of Pattaya history has left us and all who knew Somsak Martin will greatly miss him.”- And history he now becomes to CEOP, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Unit of the Serious Organised Crime Squad, who have taken over the Thailand watch.

First two strikingly opposing views on the same man. The monster story in the SUN and the eulogy of an obituary in the Scotsman by the legendary Beryl Beattie.

The Scotsman (Obit- The Saint) The SUN (The perv)

Other links: Scotsman News Evening Times Daily Record The Herald, Glasgow

How the Sun said it

Here also are links explaining the ‘Magic Circle’ Royal Commission in Scotland which the SUN mentions and which featured two Scottish Pattaya names Gordon May and Martin Frutin. It’s a bit of a red herring to this story however.

Could the Thai military have done a better deal at ‘Toys R Us’?

Published

on January 24, 2010

. 14 Comments

This is a news blog only
From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok
toys_r_us_logo_svg Action by the British Government to ban the bogus ADE651 explosives detectors which have been sold to Iraq will put the spotlight on the Thai government over the GT- 200, also sold by a British company. The GT-200 has been credited with little more than attributing to the deaths of people in the Islamic separatist insurgency in South Thailand.
The scandal of the bogus British bomb detectors, which have apparently also led to countless deaths in Iraq, is likely to gather momentum. Police in Somerset have arrested and bailed the owner of ATSC, a former Merseyside policeman, with little knowledge of science, and a lot of knowledge on how to make a fast buck.(but perhaps not as much knowledge as the buyers) At the moment police are only investigating suspected fraud. That appears to be an open and shut case as the British government has declared officially that the ADE651s is unable to detect explosives.

Could the boss, 53-yr-old Jim McCormick, not be done on more serious charges? And when will these machines be removed from the streets of Bagdad? And indeed when will the GT-200s be removed from the southern provinces of Thailand?
In the case of the GT 200, the centre of the controversy in Thailand, are claims that the British government actually approved the GT- 200 before it was sold to Thailand, where it is now being blamed for deaths of innocent civilians and police.
Meanwhile the Asian Human Rights Association and the Working Group for Justice and Peace are claiming the Thai military and Interior Ministry who bought the weapons are resisting the banning of these machines, while innocent people continue to die, flying in the face of the old adage ‘If in doubt – leave out!’

Maybe,just maybe, all you have to do is take these cards apart and find the non-existent microchip. Will the card that detects humans work in my local bar?

Yesterday a Thai Prime Minister’s office spokesman told me that an enquiry was under way, but people had come back with conflicting reports about the GT-200. And there we have it. The wheels are grinding with a lot of creaks and squeals.
Angkana Neelapaijit, Chairman of the WGJP said yet again: “We have all sorts of these machines. The British GT 200 is the most notorious (Thai forces are also using the Sniffex Plus and the Interior Ministry has bought the Alpha 6 and given it to regional police in a fanfare of press conferences).They are falsely reporting explosives at the top of coconut trees. And they have failed to detect explosives in cars and motorbikes which have subsequently exploded and killed people.
“The Generals like the machines, but the soldiers who have to operate them hate them. They would be as well off using an Ouija board.”
She added: “ We believe Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is aware of the situation and hope he will now act quickly. The news from Britain is encouraging. The ADE651 is a different machine, but similar.”
Then the subject turned to ‘The Committee of the South’ , a ‘symposium’, and letters still to be written to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

The GT-200 does not need a symposium. Apparently one person with a sharp knife or pair of scissors can solve its riddle.
The GT200 is made and marketed by Global Technical Co. Ltd, of Ashford, Kent or more precisely of Unit 7, The Glenmore Centre Moat Way, Sevington, Ashford, Kent TN24 0TL. Tel:+44 0 8701 694017.

On its website it claims it is ‘registered and supported’ by the British government and adds: ”Contrary to recent misinformation, our equipment trial reports and references provided by the Government are all original documents”. They also claim: “When the need arises, we are also able to call on the services of the Ministry of Defence to assist with various training courses”.
“This all despite the fact that last year last year Quenton Davies, Minister for Defence Equipment and Support, told the company to remove a suggested MoD endorsement for the GT-200 from its website and literature.
A British Ministry of Defence spokesman said: “The GT 200 has not been considered to satisfy any of the capabilities we need”.
I spoke to Adam Thomas of UK Trade and Investment’s Defence and Security Organisation and he admitted that an EST (Export Support Team) had ‘looked at’ the GT200 in Chatham in 1999 but had not subjected it to a ‘formal test’. I detected a few moments of awkwardness in our conversation.
gt2002-thailand1 The report the EST team made had since been mislaid, he admitted, in a ministry shake up. But the company seems to have that report from the MoD anyway endorsing their product.
“The company cannot market this machine today, which we saw in 1999, saying the MoD has confirmed its capabilities”. Reading between the lines I sense that something happened in 1999 which the MoD may be regretting.
“If the Thai government asks us to test the GT200 now we will do so”, insisted Mr. Thomas.
The GT200 works on the same supposed principal as the ADE651 and also has no powered parts and allegedly works on the energy of its operator. Similar too is the Alpha 6, 799 units of which have been sold to the Thai Ministry of the Interior for UK11,000 pounds each.
The machines allegedly work on ‘molecular magnetic resonance’ and the wand points to the suspected substance, just like a water diviner. Yes the parts in these machines can’t cost much more than a fiver, once the moulds have been made.
The machines come with ‘substance detection cards’ which are ‘designed to tune into the frequency of the targeted explosives or substance’. (worth about 5p or 3 baht in the case of the ADE651)
But when Dr, Markus Khun of Cambridge University, examined one of the cards used in the British company ATSC’s ADE651, which was sold to Iraq at US$40,000 a piece, he told Newsnight: “There is nothing to programme in these cards. There is no memory. They are the cheapest form of electronics you can get to look like electronics. They are worth 2p or 3p.”…. quod erat demonstrandum.
If the GT-200 cards are the same, and I have no reason to believe otherwise, perhaps the Thai military could have spent US$15 at ‘Toys R Us’ and still have got a better deal.
Thai military are also using another ‘magic wand’ known as the ‘Sniffex’ , marketed from Germany, which was tested by the US Navy in 2005 and found that it could not detect 1000 lbs of explosives at 20 ft.

Has Thailand fallen for ‘all’ the scammers? Or is it in connivance?

Gary Bolton, CEO, of Global Technical Co. Ltd., of Ashford, refused to give any financial figures in fact he declined to comment in December other than saying in an email: “I am updating the website. ” The website has not been updated as of today, and Gary does not want to talk on the phone it seems. On his site he has a ‘get out’ clause stating the GT-200s are best used in conjunction with sniffer dogs. But I bet he did not tell the Thai authorities that they should buy a couple of thousand sniffer dogs as well.

American professional magician James Randi has claimed that GT200, ADE 165, Alpha 6, are all frauds and has offered $1m if he could be proved wrong.

But actually what is most alarming about the whole ‘magic wand’ saga is the ‘Who Cares?’ factor.

This story has been out there for quite some time. Just google ‘GT-200′, ‘Alpha 6′, ’Sniffex’ and five other brands and you will find it all.
In fact it’s really one of the biggest ‘military scandals’ around, because not many corrupt deals can be held directly responsible for the cause of deaths…as they can here.
The first story I believe was on ‘National Public Radio’ in the US in September last year. Then it was forgotten about until November when the New York Times half heartedly took up the case but did not pursue it. The NYT was followed later by the ‘Times’ in London, Yesterday an old colleague on the Daily Mail, Kim Sengupta now long since writing for the Independent in the UK gave the story close to its due worth, even though it was mainly a clip and paste (copied today in the Spectrum section of the Bangkok Post).
But it actually took the BBC’s Newsnight to actually go out and test the machines in question, something the newspapers should have done a long time ago.

The ‘Times’ so called ’investigation’ was less scientific but it had me chuckling. It was done I presume by the author, another former and amiable younger colleague from my Observer days, Simon de Bruxelles. The Times man put the machine on a desk, sent someone out to buy a load of fireworks (nah, probably had to go himself) and placed them in front of the machine and when the wand did not move, concluded the experiment! That’s what happens when you are reporting from the office and working to today’s newspaper budgets. Television runs away with the story. Well not quite. The newspaper thundered ‘Bomb detectors banned after Times expose!’ So thank you, NPR, Newsnight, ’The Times’ or rather New York Times, comic magician James Randi, and especially the author of www.sniffexquestions.blogspot.com , of whom the latter two have beaten all us journalists hands down!

Thailand’s problem at the moment is not so much its usual inability to get things done quickly, but more the reasons why? There are people who want nothing done.
Sure let the Thai scientists probe the GT 200, but give it to the British government to test too, or maybe even BBC Newsnight, who took it to a Cambridge University professor. Actually if some-one sends any of us a GT 200 ’substance detection card’ thanks to Dr. Markus, we could detect within a few minutes if it’s not going to work!

And if the GT-200s are proved to be equally duff, heads should of course roll. But that’s not the most important thing. The GT 200s should be taken off the streets now. Should they not?
But then again I guess the buzz has gotten around and no soldier will be staking his life on these machines in the future, rather they will adopt the Thai attitude and just salute and wave happily, do a thumbs up when the generals pass, and then put the GT-200s back in the lockers.

The Spongebob Squarepants model - only US$14.95 with working parts

Meanwhile of course once they have dealt with the GT-200, the military will have to deal with the Sniffex Pluses, and the Ministry of Interior and Police will have to deal with the Alpha 6’s. The only thing that can save the day for them is a typical Thai court ‘flat earth’ judgment…not possible if this gets too much publicity outside Thailand.

The Provincial Governors of Thailand have been holding press conferences boasting of the Alpha’s prowess in drugs detection. Minister of Interior Chavarat Charnvirakul is promoting the machines in his ‘Clean and Seal for the Nation’ campaign to eradicate drugs ( I thought they could have fitted in a rhyming ’heal’ into their slogan as well). Anyway the Interior Ministry got their Alphas at a snip - Bt550,000 each while the Ministry of Defence bought the GT-200 for Bt 770,000 each.

If one of these machines points at me and policeman says ‘Se-top!, my hands are going to go up like a flash, because no doubt I will have been identifed as a ‘crack’ or ‘ice’ hood, and Thai police have yet to be disarmed and they can shoot quicker than they can, well, read an Alpha 6…well at least thats what the relatives of victims of a previous PM’s drug war will say.

Finally a message for those operating ‘magic wands’: ‘It’ll be your fault!’. In every known case where these machines have been blamed for deaths and injuries, the manufacturers and military put it down to to ‘operator failure’.

PS: For those who did not see the BBC Newsnight test on the ADE651 card here is the link

Edited: Additional info Grant Peck/AP

British ‘magic wands’ accused of killing people in South Thailand

Published

on January 4, 2010

. 24 Comments

‘These British machines are falsely finding explosives in coconut trees. But people die when they give false negative reports ’.

From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok, Monday January 4th 2010
Pictures: Andrew Chant/WGPP

The Prime Minister of Thailand will this week be asked to order the withdrawal of British explosives detection equipment known as ‘magic wands’ for testing amid claims they are killing members of the country’s security forces.

The move follows a similar controversy in Iraq two months ago where some 1,500 ‘magic wands’ sold under the name ADE165 by the British company ATSC were ridiculed for their lack of capability by the US military.

coconut-tree Premier Abhisit Vejjajiva will be asked to act on claims that similar machines sold under the name GT-200 have given totally false readings which have led to several deaths in Islamic southern Thailand, the scene of separatist terrorism.

“They are falsely identifiying explosives at the top of coconut trees, but not finding when the bombs are real and people are dying,” said Angkana Neelapaijit, a member of the parliamentary ad hoc ‘Committee on the south’ which will make the demand formal for the machines to be withdrawn and tested.
She added: “Our scientific advisors have compared the GT-200 to bomb detecting with a Ouija board.”
Already the Working Group for Justice and Peace and the Asian Human Rights Commission have called for the detectors to be withdrawn until they have been scientifically tested in Thailand.

Thai military with GT-200

The latest controversy involves the Ashford, Kent, based company ‘Global Technical Co.Ltd.,’ which last year was asked by Quenton Davies, Minister for Defence Equipment and Support, to remove a suggested MoD endorsement for the GT-200 from its website.

The Thai Interior Ministry is also promoting the ‘Alpha 6′ detector and supplying some 800 to police nationwide at 555,000 baht each -11,000 pounds sterling to detect drugs.
But ‘magic wands’ known as GT-200 used by the Thai army and sold without cabinet approval under ‘a secret military deal’, according to the Asian Human Rights Commission, are the ones of main concern, because they are supposed to detect explosives.
The units allegedly work on the principal of ‘magnetic molecular resonance’ or ‘nano ionic resonance’ and or ‘dia/para magnetism’.
The US Justice Ministry, which issued a warning about similar machines, calls it ‘Molecular Frequency Distribution’ and states in a report: “None of these attempts to create devices that can detect specific materials such as explosives (or any materials for that matter) have been proven successful in controlled double-blind scientific tests”.
A ‘magic wand’ tested by the US Navy called the Sniffex, could not detect 1000 lbs of explosives at 20 feet.
In theory the gadgets works like water diviners. They all come with a wand which is supposed to point out whatever the operator is seeking. If it’s TNT or C4 explosives the operator is looking for, the GT200, will supposedly point him to it. The units have no battery power but work off the power of the operator.
Slip other cards special cards into to the machines and they will detect cocaine, heroin, ice, and the drug of your choice – at 5oo metres, claim the distributors.
Angkana Neelapaijit, also Chairman of Thailand’s Working Group for Justice and Peace said: “They have been compared to using ouija boards. In all cases when the machines fail the operators are blamed. The generals say the machines are good. The people who have to use the machines, the soldiers, say the opposite. They don’t work and can be deadly!
“ I have tried speaking to the Prime Minister and British Ambassador to Thailand. The Prime Minister at the moment supports his Generals’ view. The Ambassador Quinton Quayle did not want to talk.”

Aftermath of undetected bomb in Pattani

The WGJP blames the GT-200 for several deaths. In their report they claim that on October 6th last year near the Merlin Hotel, in Sungai-Golok and October 19th at Pimonchai Market in Yala, bombs went off causing death and several injuries in a car and motorcycle, just a few minutes after the vehicles had been checked with the GT-200 ‘magic wands’.
They also claim that on November 7th three Border Patrol officers were killed when a bomb exploded as they were investigating a suspicious object in Pattani. Again the GT-200 showed negative results.
And again in Pattani, South Thailand, when a bomb was hidden among the dead bodies of a murdered couple in Kok Pho district, officials used the GT200 to check the bodies . The equipment suggested nothing. When officials lifted the bodies up, the bomb went off, claim the WGJP
The WGJP pointed out: “The reading device is ambiguous and subjective. There is no clear indicator. It is vague enough to excuse the authorities’ ineffectiveness. If a false negative turns out they can just blame the operator”.
The MoD says the machines are not used by British forces and do not confirm to British forces requirements.
A spokesman said Global Technical had brought a machine to them for evaluation in 1999. But the machine was not subject to proper MOD testing. “The company cannot market the machine today stating the MoD has confirmed its capabilities.”
Gary Bolton of Global Technical Ltd said the company would be updating its website later this month. Technical information provided by Global and Technical says its performance has been backed by the British Army. However the machine cannot pinpoint explosive, rather narrow them down to an area of four cubic metres.

The full range of the GT-200's bomb detecting capabilities as shown in Thailand. Not everybody believes the claims.

The Thai spy in Cambodia - the real scandal

Published

on December 15, 2009

. 13 Comments

This is a blog only

I have been following the Thai ‘non spy’ in Cambodia affair with interest. In fact I am as usual having a problem reading the newspapers with a straight face. Seems nobody in Thailand has done any real reporting on this case at all, or perhaps I have missed it. Certainly there is so much missing from the English language press. So below is scenario which involves flooding the Bangkok Post news room with hacks from London’s Fleet Street. The coverage might be a bit more sensational, but perhaps a bit more truthful too.

bangkokpostthaispy

The story so far: Hun Sen the Prime Minister of Cambodia has announced his undying love for Thaksin Shinawatra, the ousted ex-Prime Minister of Thailand, and one time owner of Manchester City FC. Hun Sen, who objects to being called a gangster, has already announced that he hates the Thai current Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, and his foreign Minister and has appointed Thaksin as his country’s economics advisor. Thaksin flies in and out by private jet from Dubai, an Emirates state in dire need of a financial adviser. Then there is outrage as Hun Sen discovers that a Thai national has told a diplomat at the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh of Thaksin’s arrival. Sivarak Chutipong, an employee of the Cambodian Air Traffic whatsit, is arrested for being a spy. However, without even waiting for a bit of that old Cambodian torture, Thailand’s James Bond confesses to telling the diplomat Thaksin’s plane has arrived. He is in a tizzy and instead of taking it on the chin, takes it on the Shin, and calls for the help of his mummy and Thaksin Shinawatra, who is a real man of the people, but travelling the world posing as an international criminal. The drama is tense ‘Could Thaksin Shinawatra’s plane have been blown out of the skies?’ Yes, says a Cambodian judge and sentences Sivarak to seven years. All is resolved when the forgiving family men Thaksin and Hun Sen send our puffy faced man with the wet handkerchief back home.

Scene: Editorial newsroom of the Bangkok Post now staffed by ex-journalists from the Daily Mail, Sun, and Mirror. Morning conference:

Editor: Right lads what are we going to do about our national Sivarak Chutipong, who’s been arrested for being spying in Cambodia? I think we’ve got to be a little outraged here. There’s clearly something odd going on. Cambodia’s only national secret is the behavior of its Prime Minister.
News Editor: Well the Cambodian Air Traffic Services (CATS) controls not only Phnom Penh and Siem Reap airports but all domestic airports in the country. Our guys are running the air space out there but their website is down. Anyway nothing takes off without them knowing. As for Thaksin he always arrives with a fanfare and does everything but kiss the tarmac. Sivarak told our diplomat what he already knew. Thaksin had already arrived. He could have just popped his head round the corner to have seen that, or told our attaché to turn on his TV. I guess the bandleader knew hours ahead…..There may be a business angle to this too.

City Editor: Yes Samart who own CATS has always been in competition to Thaksin in the communications field. Samart got into Cambodia before Thaksin did. Thaksin does not like losing. I’ll get my guys to look at Thaksin’s investments in Cambodia. Actually Samart probably went in with the wrong guy. They got the first Thai mobile phone contract there. But they got in through their connections to Sun Chanthol, who was then with Prince Rannaridh’s FUNCINPEC party. He is now only in the current government through political expediency and fear, a lot of his opposition mates are now dead or have fled. He’s tipped to go soon too.

Foreign Editor: We’ll we can put a piece together giving a background on Hun. I suggest we start off with the confession by the ex-Phnom Penh police chief Heng Peov. He accuses Hun of being involved in drugs trafficking, the systematic removal by execution of his rivals, ordering the setting off grenades at opposition demonstrations, and there’s always the dead mistress Piseth Pileka.

Editor: Hun? Actually I don’t think Hun is his first name. Better check it out. Think you have to use Hun Sen in full here. Anyway I like the starlet angle.

Gossip page editor: Yes, we can cover that. She is the Cambodian classical dancer who was the former mistress to former Cambodian Police Chief Hoc Lundy, who passed her onto Khun Hun. Sorry Hun Sen. Seems Hun Sen’s wife did not like it though. Seems she asked Lundy to get rid of her. She was shot in broad daylight in Phnom Penh. There’s something a bit Princess Di about her. Everybody loved her even though she was taking pirate gold.

Gossip Editor: Won’t Hun Sen sue us?
Editor: Not in our courts!

Foreign Editor: Yes and Hoc Lundy was not only Cambodia’s police chief, he was also the mafia chief. He was banned from the United States for suspicion of being involved in drugs trafficking, which means they had him bang to rights. He’s dead now though. No libel issues here.
Editor: Okay. And I want to know every cough, spit and fart about this guy Sivarak. We’ve got to find a hero here. See all his friends and relatives. What are his politics? Get the love angle. At the moment he’s looking a bit like a wimp crying for his mummy. Also we need to remind our readers that Thaksin Shinawatra has been convicted of criminal acts of corruption.

News Editor: Are you sure that’s wise. We could lose a few readers.

Editor: Okay, the owners may not like it, just a couple of paragraphs. Don’t go back too far. Thai people will have forgotten. Besides he might be back to jail us next year. Go with the personal stuff on Sivarak.

Editor: What about our man in Phnom Penh?

Foreign Editor:” He’s keeping a low profile. Scared he might be arrested for plane-spotting. Well actually he has been plane-spotting because we have not paid him for a few months. Its a bit unsafe now. But he was at the airport when Thaksin arrived. We probably knew before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Editor: Turns to secretary: “Now can I have that coffee”

“Off course Hun. I mean Khun Editor”

Next day’s headlines

Front Page: CAM-BODGE-D! THAI HELD ON TRUMPED UP CHARGE

Pages: 3,and 4, THE MONSTER RUNNING CAMBODIA!

Pages: 4,& 5: Picture exclusive. Sivarak Chutipong: from cradle to stinking Cambodian hell hole.

Sign the Petition: BRING BACK OUR BOY!

Pages 6 & 7: Ex-girlfriend speaks for the first time: ‘My gentle lover now sleeping with the rats’
Pages 8 & 9: Cambodian politicians paid in dollars for night in heaven with screen idol.

“I thought some of her class might have rubbed off on me, then the big boss wanted her all to himself” ex-police chief tells medium from beyond the grave

Page 10: Best friend: ‘HE WORE A RED SHIRT BUT HAD A YELLOW STREAK TOO!.

City Pages: Thaksin Sinawatra’s cash in Cambodia and new business plans. Plus: Thaksin the new king of the Cambodian skies.
Property: Cambodian poor beg: ’PLEASE MR. THAKSIN CAN YOU ASK HUN SEN TO GIVE US OUR HOMES BACK?

Headlines today December 16th 2009

Page One: “TRAITOR! MUMMY’S BOY HOLD THE HAND OF A MONSTER’

Pages 2 & 3: “I want my case raised as a censure motion,” sobs Sivarak
(at least that’s what mummy says I want)

Page 4: Girlfriend speaks: “My boyfriend was a love-rat. He was so bl**dy gentle I didn’t even know he was there! ”

Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement: ‘OH DO JUST GO HOME SIVARAK!”

Simon Cowell says: ‘Look you guys you need professional management. Even a Thai audience aren’t going to fall for this.’

Footnote: There is a precedent that beats this in terms of a non story which has provided entertainment for millions. In the 80s the British press were given a story about how superstitious Catholic Spaniards threw a donkey off a church tower on St. Wotsit’s Day every year.

Animal loving Brits were horrified. The press were in a frenzy to save the donkey and off went reporters from the Sun, Star, Mirror, and Express. The donkey was called ‘Nigger’ but for PC purposes that was changed to ‘Blackie’. Two or three newspapers rescued ‘Blackie’ or what they thought was ‘Blackie’ bringing their prizes back to the UK.

The stories of what the journalists did to beat each other on the story are legendary, better than many ’front line’ stories. So is what happened to the poor unfortunate donkeys. I believe now in a certain town in Spain if a black donkey hears there is a British journalist in town, he will climb to the top of the church tower himself and jump off voluntarily.

Disabled Brits face ‘girlfriend’ deprivation - Pattaya

Published

on December 14, 2009

. 17 Comments

This is a blog only

In the spirit of ‘well just fancy that’ comes the news that some of us poor Brits living over here in Thailand are panicking a bit because those who distribute social security payments back home are blocking payments to people essentially living overseas.

So step-forward the Pattaya Brits who find that even a half-good disability pension will cover an apartment, a few beers and a few girls a week in this charming resort though with the drop of the British pound some may have to reduce the quality of service.

Anyway now despite the chippies, greasy breakfasts, mushy peas, warm beer, urinating in the street, football, drunken punch ups, pub quiz nights, drag acts, and having a ‘gaff’, these ‘geezers’ are coming to the realisation that yes, they are in fact in the overseas category.

'Nah not me. Must be some other geezers' So now we have to wait and see how they wriggle out of it. Some I gather are already perfecting disguises like this chap here on the right.

A hundred or so Brits have been writing into the local website ‘PattayaSecrets.com’ seeking more information and offering comment after a rumours started that (1) Customs and Revenue and (2) The Department of Work and Pensions, were opening up offices in the resort.

What a diabolical liberty!

Some of the posters are making known exactly what they feel about people who ‘grass them up’.

PattayaSecrets.com is not shy about being a site for ‘mongers’; in the local parlance, people who habitually seek sex with prostitutes.

The site even has a section for trip reports where punters rate the sexual abilities of individual Thai ‘bar girls’ and post pictures of their ‘purchases’. I’d much rather like to see a site where the girls rate their punters.

One poster ‘Kwarmsuk’ writes: “Why the f**k should I pay for some scrounging f**ker who is living in Thailand when I work like f**k and pay taxes to keep them. I personally know at least 4 or 5 guys claiming sickness benefit from the UK living in Pattaya and they seem to visit bars, and monger with Thai girls ok”. (A little editing was essential here)

Its comforting to see however that many Brits too are angry about these scroungers, one of the most famous of whom in the UK was photographed running a marathon while claiming benefit as an invalid. Actually Brit Paul Appleby (pictured below) ran three marathons between 2002 and 2005 while claiming he could only walk with the aid of sticks or a frame and most of the time was wheelchair bound.

Even Soi 7, the site-owner, enters the fray in his case to extol the benefits of disability payments:” I tore a tendon in my wrist years ago. The doctor said no work for a month. I applied for and got disability payments and went straight to Las Vegas and spent the time enjoying myself. Could not see a thing wrong with that”

Well I guess he could still handle a game of Blackjack or Pontoon and pull a one armed bandit. But, I guess, there’s some things he could not do with his remaining workable wrist which could result in clinical depression.

marathon-man1 A poster cutely called ‘Gobbler’ wrote: “It is wrong to claim benefits while living abroad, especially those whoring in Thailand. There is a free grass telephone line if you know anyone doing this despicable practice”

But he was quickly put down by ‘johnniec63’ who wrote: “People like you make me f….g puke!”

(There’s a lot of f…g! on this site by the way)

One poster thinks he has found his way around social security sleuths: “Fly to Belfast, then go to Dublin by bus. No checkpoint or visa check on border. Then buy flight ticket from Dublin to Thailand that way, the UK government will think you are still in the UK!”

Crafty blighter. The British authorities will never work that one out, especially when his ATM card reveals a location next to the ‘Gobble and Go’ bar. Well actually he’s a bit short on knowledge about how much the authorities do know about ticketing.

Disability pension can be over 180 quid (to use the vernacular) a week sterling, a junior executive salary in Thailand, two to three times the salary of a bus driver and about the same as say a foreign sub-editor on the Bangkok Post English language newspaper, which is quite a lot if you don’t even know what country Copenhagen is the capital of.

Of course there are disabilities which I suppose could warrant a sojourn to Pattaya, though I am not entirely convinced that it is a cure for ‘clinical depression’ as some people seem to have been on the cure for years.

Actually I know one of these chaps from a bar in Bangkok. He flies to Thailand at least three times a year. The last time he arrived he told me just how cheap he was able to get his latest consignment of ‘Kamagra’.

Perhaps he gets in on prescription. I can’t look at him with a straight face.

But as one who pays taxes in both the UK and Thailand and sees the National Health Service struggling to cope, partially because we have to pay all these fraudulent claims, I would have no problems reporting genuine frauds.

A bad dancer always has trouble with his balls - Pattaya

Published

on December 11, 2009

. 9 Comments

This is a blog only

b52clubpattaya Pattaya’s infamously dead pan local media, which faithfully follows their local police, have been slavishly reporting, the recent arrest of 11 Russian prostitutes in the B52 club complex in, according to the Pattaya Daily News, ‘Pattaya’s infamous Walking Street’.

The raids conducted by Chonburi Superintendent, Pol. Col. Worawit Waitanormjit, if your read the PDN, or Police Lieutenant Colonel Rangsalit if you watch Pattaya One TV, were carried out after police ‘acting on tip offs’ put the club under surveillance.

This club was just recently opened in a fanfare by Pattaya’s Deputy Mayor, Ronnakit Ekkasing. As Russian girls have been working in clubs in Pattaya for years and even dance in little glass booths on the infamous Walking Street (and on Youtube too) if the police have not noticed, they must be, well er…………….have been paid not to!

Actually the video put up by the Pattaya Daily News is hilarious. In it the girls seem to be taking the mickey a little bit.

They know what has been going on but evidently the Deputy Mayor noticed nothing untoward.

tolmachevy-sisters At the police station they burst into a rousing chorus of ‘Katyusha’, sung better here however by the the Russian Red Army choir and boyband Chelsea, and or here where you can boogie with the Tolmachevy child star sisters. Katyusha is a patriotic song,Russian women sending their love to the soldiers on the front line during the Second World War. Katyusha rockets were also the Soviets’ World War 11 World War II vengeance weapons.

The girls are are happily signing their confessions, and it looks like the new boss will have to send home for re-enforcements.

I rang the club and asked what the problem was. The woman on the end of the phone replied in Russian: “A bad dancer always has trouble with his balls”.

I am awaiting for some clarification.

Brit in island ‘drug rape’ case returns to Thailand to give evidence

Published

on December 11, 2009

. 8 Comments

From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok, December 10

A Briton, who fled Thailand with his girlfriend after they believe they were seriously sexually abused after being drugged on a holiday island, has returned to complete his evidence for Thai police.

Police in Koh Chang, 250 miles south east of Bangkok, said today they had now taken a statement from the man, known only as Richard, over claims that the couple from London had both been raped at their holiday bungalow on the island at the end of a world tour.

The couple, the man, a company director, 42, the woman, known as Susan, 31, fled with the bedding from their guest house, believing the Thai Police were not taking their allegations seriously.

Both have been interviewed by officers from a Scotland Yard ‘Project Sapphire’ team based in Kingston, and have been treated and tested at ‘The Haven’ at the Royal London Hospital.

“I am absolutely confident that Scotland Yard will be able to confirm that we were drugged and that they will be able to get DNA profiles of our attackers,” said Richard in Bangkok today.

The couple claimed they were drinking and listening to music at their holiday apartment on the Thai island of Koh Chang in the early morning on November 19^th with an English woman and her three French friends, when they collapsed.

The man claimed he awoke briefly to find his face being forced against their bungalow window to see his partner being raped inside. Later the same morning he awoke again to see the group leave and boast about what they had done. Before they complained to police they consulted a local doctor who told them they were showing the symptoms of having been drugged with a ‘date rape’ type drug, possibly Dormicon.

Dr. Roongtham Charentantanakul , who counseled said afterwards: “These cases are very difficult to deal with. These drugs have two main affects, one is hypnotic and the other is retrograde amnesia. That means the victims can fully co-operate with their attackers and then afterwards forget all about it or only have partial recall”.

Although ‘Susan’, 31, gave a statement, the couple decided to flee Thailand, they said, when a Thai British Consular official advised them to leave, and police refused to collect DNA evidence from their room.

Scotland Yard have confirmed they have taken samples from the couple and their bedding and also done video interviews. The matter would be handed over to SOCA – the Serious Organised Crime Agency, who have a representative at the British Embassy in Bangkok, to pass on to Royal Thai Police, Region 2.

Journalism and yak fur

Published

on December 8, 2009

. 7 Comments

This is a blog only

Today I hand over this blog to a missive from Roger Beaumont , my ‘hail fellow well met’ public school rebel friend, who used to work on the ‘Nation’ but left when the editors decided they could produce an English language newspaper with a designer from Milwaukee and without too many troublesome English language sub-editors and columnists.

Searching for perhaps eternal youth, or the meaning of life etc, lovable and always upbeat Roger, is now ensconsed in Thimpu, and the picture postcard land of Bhutan, the Land of (extremely exaggerated I suspect*) Gross National Happiness, aka, the Land of the Thunder Dragon. I think he went to the airport and decided just to get the third flight up on the display board, which is what I did in my youth. Anyway, after first thinking, Oh F..k!, he is now learning about inner happiness, under a pile of yak fur.

Roger

Yes, Roger loves it there, But what the brochures do not tell you is to what degree winters can freeze your goollies. So I guess he’s also up there on the net seeking mail order Agas (public school you know) second hand hot water bottles, etc. Red Cross parcels can be sent simply to Roger, Thimpu, the whole town knows him. Visitors to see him however will still have to pay the Government rate of US$200 a day. Roger keeps in touch with a number of us while warming his nether regions squatting I suspect over lighted candles liberated from a local temple.

Anyway he still appears to be watching politics in Thailand, so here’s a copy of a letter he has written to the Bangkok Post. It may have appeared in the letters page. I am just guessing it has not because I have not been reading the Post this week, but the Post is not heavily into self flaggellation.

So the hills are alive with the ‘Sound of Roger’ and this also shows how Thai politics can really get to you. Most foreigners just head up to the top story of a local condo. Roger is amongst the highest mountains in the world. Don’t do it Rodge, you’re out of it now, besides, I’m buying the turkey tomorrow!

Footnote:December 9th. The Bangkok finally printed Roger’s letter today followed by two readers anxious to tell the newspapers sub-editors that Copenhagen was NOT the capital of Norway as the newspaper had claimed. Seems like they need some new sub-editors there too. (here too sometimes but you get my literals for free!)

*The land of Gross National Happiness is also credited with having the worst national dish, ‘ema datsi’, a concoction of yak cheese, chillies, and onions. I believe the affects of this dish also gave the country its ‘Land of the Thunder Dragon’ tag.

Dear fellows,
I have no idea, as of writing, whether this will make BKK’s Postbag/letters to the editor page or not. I would have liked to have written it in green ink on immaculate writing paper, and by the way, how do you spell garrotted?
Best
Rodge

Dear Sir,
To the surprise of no one, Thai politicians, like most politicians, only obey the law when there is no alternative because they believe they are immune from the laws which they have made. They have ambitions but no ideals and will always compromise any promise for self-interest.
They know how material benevolence can gain public opinion, but forgot how moral failure can lose it. So, the question is: how do bright, conscientious Thais actually feel when they see the betrayal or inversion of the country’s best values and dreams? How do they keep their scruples and intellect intact when reality deems that any act that’s immoral, as long as it succeeds, is alright?
Surely, morality is where it all starts and in many ways ends. If a Thai – and anyone else for that matter - doesn’t have a moral foundation, or if they are not knowledgeable about it, or don’t know how to control it, and don’t feel historically tied to it by culture or family, then whatever they do is not as valuable or strong as it could be.
The point is, Thai politics is not a public service, it is a private business, and if those who have done no wrong can find no way to punish those who have, then they are all as culpable as one another. Just knowing that moral grown-ups don’t need rules to tell them what’s right is like wishing for an outbreak of common sense in Parliament.

New Bhutan wildlife

What we have today is manga politics, brimming with vain, loathsome, cartoonish,
manipulative, insensitive bullies throwing dung at each other of their own making. They ooze entitlement but none of them are likeable or forgivable and yet they insist on being wai-ed every five minutes, demanding more respect than those fallen in battle.
And now they want guns. Good. Perhaps they’ll eliminate each other in one glorious shoot out over a mia noi in a Yasothon car park. I wouldn’t trust any of them with the TV remote. They are bereft of decency and beyond parody. Are these so called leaders, the people young Thais should look up to as an example?
Their well-rehearsed response of being corrupt was like my university friend’s well-rehearsed response of being drunk; shift the blame by claiming victim status. Rather than apologise, my friend would insist: “I was led on by the treachery of others, sir.”
If the future of Thailand depended on the intellectual quality of its politicians, it would end at about happy hour tomorrow night.
What brilliant men they are not.

Roger Beaumont,
Thimphu, Bhutan

Brits in Thai island ‘drug rape’ pin their hopes on Scotland Yard

Published

on December 4, 2009

Link Evening Standard The SUN

. 9 Comments

From Andrew Drummond, Koh Chang, Thailand

White Sands Beach, Koh Chang

Scotland Yard confirmed today that they have conducted tests on a British couple who say they were subjected to a horrifying gang rape in Thailand and planned to co-operate with a Thai police investigation into the incident.

The couple who fled back to London feeling that Thai police were botching their own investigation have given video statements and undergone extensive forensic analysis , at the hands of a Metropolitan police ‘Sapphire Project’ team.
the-haven They are now receiving counseling at ‘The Haven’, the Met Police, Barts and NHS Sexual Offences Referral unit at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel – after a seemingly horrific ‘Clockwork Orange’ style attack on them on the Thai holiday Island of Koh Chang last month.
Known by the names ‘Richard’ and ‘Susan’ they claimed the rapes happened when they must have invited other fellow tourists, a girl and two men, they had met at a beach bar to their holiday bungalow to continue to drink and listen to music in their room. The couple cannot actually recall inviting anyone back and say it would have been out of character.

Susan, 31, said she recalled that the English girl requested she put on the song ‘It’s getting hot in here, so please take off your clothes’, by Nelly. But she could not work her laptop anymore and must have passed out in the process of looking for it.
Both lost consciousness and Richard, 42, a company director, said he recalled briefly waking as he was being forcibly held against a bungalow window and made to watch his girlfriend, being raped by two men.
The couple claimed they slept for two days afterwards, occasionally waking up to splitting headaches. When the headaches wore off both felt considerable discomfort both in their sexual organs and anal passages. “I had no strength or ability to resist or fight”.
When they went to the local hospital on Koh Chang, a doctor called police on their behalf. He said that the couple had symptoms of having been administered the drug Dormicon.
Dormicon is a generic of midzolam which has been used in the United States to give to prisoners on death row to relax them shortly before execution. It’s also used as a pre-op drug in hospitals. It can affect people in different ways.
At Koh Chang’s International Clinic Dr. Roongtham Charentantanakul who counseled them said: “We have had other cases like this, but this is the first case that I have heard of where foreigners have given such a drug to other foreigners.
“These cases are very difficult to deal with. These drugs have two main affects, one is hypnotic and the other is retrograde amnesia. That means the victims can fully co-operate with their attackers and then afterwards forget all about it or only have partial recall. In one case, he said, a woman was actually injected on a dance floor. She felt it something in her upper arm when it happened and looked around, but as she was a little bit drunk, she just carried on dancing.
“There are unscrupulous drug store owners in Thailand who will sell these sorts of drugs over the counter.
“But unless the couple are treated and tested immediately traces of the drugs disappear from the body within 12 hours. In that case all the evidence police will get is that they actually co-operated.”
Susan however said today: “We have been told by Scotland Yard forensics officers that it is possible that they can find a trace of the drug, and of sexual assault. We have both been given full tests and those have shown I have been assaulted, although because of the time frame some things have healed. We will have to wait for further tests of hair roots as they try and identify the drug’s make-up.”
Richard and Susan had just spent 11 months on a round the world and decided to spend the last week of a ‘truly wonderful experience’ chilling out on the beach at Koh Chang, an island just off Cambodia.

The popular Sabay Bar on Koh Chang

On November 18th they said they went to the popular ‘Sabay” beach and music bar on Haad Sai Kao (White Sands Beach) Koh Chang to watch a fire show and dance and listen to the band.
There they met three Frenchman and an English girl and spent much of the evening in their company.
When the bar closed the couple, the English girl, and two of the Frenchmen, went back to their bungalow at White Sands Garden situated up a hill in a rubber plantation. They were later joined by the third Frenchman. Shortly afterwards both Richard and Susan say they lost consciousness.

The couple's bungalow room at White Sands Garden

Said Richard: “The police acted as if they did not believe our story. They did not take any DNA evidence from the room, but it was clear the bed cover was heavily stained and there were marks on the window where my face had been pressed against it.
“I woke up in a foetal position outside our bungalow room. These men were laughing as they left. They boasted about what they had done. I believe the English girl was used to give us a feeling of re-assurance, and in fact we were targeted from the point we met this group.
“We left Thailand because we were unhappy with the investigation and we took the bedclothes with us. But it has always been my intention to go back and I have told the Embassy to tell the police I will. What these people did was barbaric.”
From their own enquiries the couple has established details of two of the four people and have information about the third man. One of them has since removed his ‘Facebook’ page, a second is the son of a wealthy businessman and is known for his martial arts. They believe they have found an internet photograph of the third man.
At the island’s police station Inspector Sibayot Chittiyakul said: “ We are taking this seriously, but we need witnesses. The safety of tourists is important to us. But the couple have to understand we have procedures to follow and the first thing is to get their full statements.
“We have names and identities and are monitoring the case, one of whom has a Thai address. But we cannot make an arrest until the man completes his statement.”
The Thai owner of the White Sands Garden who asked not to be named said however the group all arrived back in the early hours on November 19th and seemed to be enjoying themselves.
“The English man later apologized in the morning for all the noise. Foreigners like to party. That is all it seemed to us.”
A spokesman for Scotland Yard said: “We can confirm that an SCD2 Team (Special Crime Directorate 2 - Sapphire Project) from Kingston have been assisting the Thai authorities in reference to allegations of rape.” The spokesman added as it was a Thai investigation the matter would have to go through the appropriate channels.

Rape scene from 'A Clockwork Orange'

The 70s cult film ‘A Clockwork Orange’ directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Malcolm McDowell is best remembered for a scene in which a gang of delinquents known as the ‘Droogs’ who get high on senseless violence and rape a woman in front of her author husband. The anti-hero, Alex, is later treated with drugs by the state so that he suffers extreme nausea at the very thought of violence and sexual activity and is released into society where he becomes a victim.

The relevant FCO Travel Advisory

“There have been a number of incidents where tourists have had their drinks drugged (in both tourist areas and red light districts). You should be careful about taking drinks from strangers and be wary at clubs and parties, particularly in the Koh Samui area and at the Full Moon party on Phangan Island where incidences of date rape have been reported. A number of British nationals have suffered severe psychiatric problems because of drug use, in a small number of cases resulting in suicide.

We receive occasional reports of tourists who have been robbed after bringing visitors to their hotel rooms. In some cases their drinks were drugged. Ensure that your passport and wallet are secure at all times.

We continue to receive reports of sexual offences committed against foreign women and men. In 2007 our Consular staff were aware of a number of British nationals who were the victim of a serious sexual offence in Thailand. In January 2006, three British women were raped in separate incidents in Thailand, including one who was murdered.

Female travellers in particular should maintain a high state of personal awareness during their time in Thailand. Be aware that alcohol and drugs can lead to you being less alert, less in control and less aware of your environment. If you are going to drink, know your limit. Remember that drinks served in bars overseas are often stronger than those in the UK. Reports of sexual assaults against women have become particularly prevalent in the Koh Samui archipelago. Women travellers are, therefore, advised to take particular care over their personal security whilst staying in this area. For more guidance about this see our Rape and sexual assault overseas page.

You should report any incidents of crime to the Thai police before leaving the country.

Fisherman jailed for murder of British yachtsman - Thailand

Published

on November 29, 2009

Link to Sky News today Sunday Mirror

. 0 Comments

Background Links: The Times, Daily Mail
From Andrew Drummond, Bangkok, Saturday November 28 2009

Pictures: Andrew Chant

lindarobertsonmalcolmboat3

Two young Burmese fishermen have been sentenced to 25 years in prison each for the murder of 64-yr-old British yachtsman Malcolm Robertson off the coast of Thailand earlier this year.

At statement from the British Embassy in Bangkok today confirmed that Eksian Warapon, 19, and a shipmate known only as Aow, 18, were sentenced at Satun Provincial court earlier in the week.

A third Burmese, a juvenile known as Ko, aged 17, was sentenced to be held in custody until he reaches the age of 24, said Daniel Painter, Second Secretary at the British Embassy in Bangkok.

The two elder Burmese were initially sentenced to fifty years but their sentence was cut in half because they pleaded guilty and were remorseful.

The Burmese had been stranded on a small island off Koh Adang in the Tarutao National Marine Park off the south coast of Thailand in March this year after jumping ship from a Thai fishing boat when Malcolm Robertson sailed in and moored offshore.

They were initially referred to as pirates but later it became clear that the young Burmese had been sold as slave labour to a Thai fishing fleet and had been in and out of immigration detention centres in Thailand.

Before the attack they had spent eight months and sea without being allowed ashore with their Thai colleagues. They swum to the island and hopefully freedom.

But the island had no food and very little water.

Aow and Eksian (right)

Eksian Warapon, 19, told the court that all three were starving when the Robertson’s yacht ‘Mr. Bean’ anchored offshore,

“The boat was our only way of escape. We did not want to harm anyone but the foreigner put up a fight,” said Eksian..

They had swum to the boat and climbed aboard but were surprised by Mr.Robertson who started shouting at them.

Eksian admitted to being the person who bludgeoned Mr. Robertson with a hammer he had found on the 44 ft yacht, after the others tied up Linda Robertson, 57, naked in a cabin.

Later Mrs. Robertson, who with her husband owned a chain of cafes in Sussex, made a courageous escape by freeing herself, weighing anchor and sailing away while her captors were mucking trying to get Mr. Bean’s ‘troublesome’ dingy to work.

The three men had agreed to leave the boat and had packed a dinghy with stolen property.including computers, mobile phones,

She said afterwards “But they had only got thirty yards when the engine began to splutter as I knew it would,

Linda Robertson in 'Mr. Bean's' dinghy

“They turned and started coming back, so I rushed to pull up the anchor, which was quite easy, because they had only let out thirty yards. Then I put the boat into full throttle and headed out to see leaving them behind.

“Then I saw them head to shore and I knew my ordeal was over and I was safe. I cannot believe I survived.”
Linda Robertson said today at her home St. Leonards, Sussex: “The juvenile showed a lot of remorse so I think his light sentence is justified. I am happy with the verdict. I am relieved they did not get the death penalty. Twenty five years in a Thai jail will be hell on earth. I would not wish any more on them. It’s another step towards getting over Malcolm’s death”..

A formal inquest will be held Sussex next month.

‘Clockwork Orange’ and Thailand _Updated 29/09

Published

on November 28, 2009

in Others

. 29 Comments

This is a blog only

BRITAIN OBIT KUBRICK In the ‘Brits subjected to ’Clockwork Orange’ attack story once again I am the bearer of bad tidings about violent crime in Thailand but in this case it is foreigners doing unspeakable things to foreigners.

This is not an attack on Thailand, although once again, I believe this demonstrates that , no matter how many foreign funded courses they attend, Thai police are still not mentally geared up to properly handle cases involving woman and children, or sex crime in general.

Once again George’s cowboys at Thaivisa.com have saddled up again on the forum and are on their ’sensational journalism’ gig. But I have to say the story which appeared in today’s ‘Daily Mail’ only touches upon the real horror of what this couple claimed to have happened to them. And this is a story which I suspect has not ended.

I gave the story the ‘Clockwork Orange’ tag, because this incident reminded me of a scene in that film. The film of course is a bit historical and this may not mean much to someone under thirty!

Anyway despite many well publicised cases in Thailand, rapes of foreigners are more often committed by foreigners here. Tourism breeds contempt and this latest incident will not do anything to dispel that. I feel a certain resignation both among the police and Embassy officials about what foreigners will do next.

That means I suspect that often genuine victims may not get the full counselling they need.

Anyone who has dealt with victims of date rape drugs will know the absolute agony and torment these people go through. It will be with them for the rest of their lives.

I believe the couple. People on Koh Chang believe the couple. But to ask the couple to go through a court ordeal in Thailand…well that’s a different matter. Police here often do not treat victims with kid gloves. The two Britons have exposed themselves to a certain extent. That shows considerable bravery. But all they want to do is warn other people.

They had after all just been around the world and the worst thing that happened to them was committed by a sneak thief in Ecuador.

In this case the suspected drug was ‘Dormicum’. Thats a generic form of ‘midazolam’ which is used in operating theatres by surgeons who want their patients to co-operate during surgery. It is also given to Death Row prisoners in the United States before execution.

So I guess if it makes people feel happy to be executed its going to have a similar affect on a woman who is subjected to unspeakable acts in a bungalow on Koh Chang.

Legal provisons dictate that I cannot tell you much more than what a nice, level head couple these people are. I have to change the names, ages, and be very vague about their occupations.

Whats more there are photographs. Photographs taken by the couple before this happened. And without doubt photographs taken by these low-lifes themselves when it was happening.

Despite their ordeal they were very complimentary about Thailand and feel the country is generally safe certainly a lot safer than some South American countries they have recently had to negotiate.

And why indeed should not they feel safe striking up a conversation with an English girl and a group of Frenchman at a beach bar in Thailand?

Not suprisingly ‘Richard’ wanted to get ‘Susan’ home as soon as possible. He has told the Embassy he will return to complete his statement and both will give evidence should any arrests be made. They feel concerned about the justice system and want DNA tests on materials conducted separately by the Home Office in the UK. Yesterday (Saturday) they submitted themselves for medical and forensic examination at the BNH in Bangkok. They also liaised with the British Embassy

They are also coming to terms that in due course their identities will have to be revealed if they are to pursue this case through the courts here.

British couple subjected to vile ‘Clockwork Orange’ style sex attack - Thailand

Published

on November 28, 2009

. 4 Comments

Link to DailyMail Link New York Daily News
By Andrew Drummond
Last updated at 12:38 AM on 28th November 2009
A British couple have become victims of a horrendous Clockwork Orange-style sex attack ordeal while on holiday in Thailand.

The professional couple had chosen the Thai holiday island of Koh Chang to round off a memorable one-year sabbatical from their jobs touring the world.

But last night, the couple, one a government employee, the other a businessman, fled Thailand after they were subjected to a night of terror in which they say they were drugged and raped by a gang they suspect preys on foreign tourists.

The couple did not wish to be fully identified. But the man, Richard, 42, remembers being forced to watch as his wife Susan, 31, was sexually assaulted by two men.

For the next two days, the couple lay almost motionless in their holiday bungalow as gradually their memories returned.

Koh Chang

They called the police, but when nobody went to see them, they went to a local hospital to be examined by doctors.

Richard said: ‘The doctor there examined us and listened to our story and seemed to know what had happened straight away.

‘He told us we were showing all the symptoms of having been given the drug Dormicum – a date rape drug. I do not know the drug, but it seemed of no surprise to the doctor.

‘When I asked the doctor if he could check for any traces, he said no, it would have been cleared out of our systems by now.’

They contacted the police, who they say showed scant interest and did little in the way of investigation.

They also contacted British authorities, but say the British representative on the island who came to see them was not interested either.

Last night, they were on their way back to Britain, with little prospect of anything being done. But they wanted to make others aware of the dangers of making contact with strangers in such places.

Richard said: ‘I know many people are not going to believe this and say that we must have been taking drink or drugs through choice. But nothing could be further from the truth.’

Susan said the night of their ordeal began with a pleasant drink at a beach bar, where they met an Englishwoman and some Frenchmen. They stayed in their company at the bar, although at one point she and her partner left for a short time, returning to join them. It was at that point, she believes, the drinks were spiked.

‘

Clockwork Orange

Things became a bit hazy. And then one of the Frenchmen lifted me up and carried me out of the bar. In a normal situation I would not let anybody do such a thing. It was bizarre.’

The group all went back to the couple’s bungalow.

‘Then things got hazier and hazier,’ she said.

‘Everything was a blur.’

Richard said he could vaguely remember being outside the bungalow and watching through a window as Susan was assaulted by the men.

‘The next thing it was light and I was lying on the balcony in a foetal position and the Frenchman were standing above me looking down and laughing and saying what they had done to Susan.’

He realised that at some point he too had been sexually attacked.

The couple said that when they were able to complain to police ‘they did not seem very interested’.

After contacting the British Embassy they were visited by a consular representative, a local Thai woman, who told them the police would not take the case seriously.

‘We have been contacted by the police who have asked us what we are going to do,’ said Richard.

‘We do not want to let the matter drop. But we must get home to our families.’

A Thai Police spokesman strenuously denied they were not taking the couple’s complaint seriously and said an investigation was under way.

A British Embassy spokesman said: ‘The consular team in Bangkok have been in touch throughout to give help and advice to the British nationals involved and are urgently following up with the Thai police.

‘A member of staff from our consulate in Pattaya visited the British nationals within the first day of the embassy being contacted to provide face-to-face assistance. Our consular staff in London have also been in touch with the family members in the UK.’

Of monks, mama-sans, sex tourists and balconies

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