 and to have quite large chunks of your life taken from you and stolen from you within seconds my life just went yeah upside down within seconds I went from being this carefree young girl living in Dennery having the time of my life to being a frightened fugitive very surreal that yeah your one given time your life can change in a second Terry how are you yeah fine how are you Chris I'm honoured my love that after you know our paths have sort of crossed on the on the bookosphere because we've both got got books out there and I know that we've chatted on and off for years I don't know if that's through Instagram or what and to finally meet you and also to chat to someone who's got a sort of can I say a banged up abroad type story that's that's great I mean that's where I live my life is to me excited you know okay I guess it wasn't exciting at the time but it's not your run-of-the-mill story is it no no it's yeah it's been quite a terrific journey from start to finish yeah and makes obviously good reading yeah yeah we should point out from the beginning that you were innocent which makes it more I mean a lot of the banged up abroad they just they did it didn't they and and but but in your case you was you were not so much stitched up but you were in bad can we say bad company yeah I think it was I think like anything abroad is is a different ballgame altogether I've heard so many stories it's shocking and I still to this day are getting stories coming out of people waiting eight years for like sentences to go through on silly little crimes that only carry a two-year jail sentence and and they're literally waiting eight years to be brought to sentence and the fact is that you are guilty by association so even if you're not committing the crime just because you're with somebody who's committing a crime you're gonna be be judged and you are going to be tried in a court with with no with no innocent or guilty plea put in no it's a total different ballgame over there and to have quite large chunks of your life taken from you and stolen from you and it's it's quite yeah it's quite nerve-racking really even to this day today I've had a message from somebody who's still awaiting a trial eight years on of something that was very very trivial yeah even in this country they you probably wouldn't even get sentenced for it so yeah I was just gonna say in this country they've got this what's the bloody PPR the the order where they can keep you in jail indefinitely it coming under that under Blair oh the name slips my mind but I know that the Pepsi Watson was on it and they just recalled him for absolutely nothing he didn't oh yeah yeah yeah and it's so it's so when you come out here in Britain because obviously I was released back in the UK and yeah you come out on prison license so yeah you can't get recalled at any time on that license for any trivial thing that you're doing and then of course there are like the first second and third strike so a third strike you still get lifed off and you'll get life to a three-year sentence and then yeah they won't let you out until they feel fit that you are allowed to come out so yeah it's but the prison license is tough like really tough yeah yeah the one Pepsi's on it's just it's just evil sorry for friends watching someone put it below in the comments what we're talking about so if anyone wants is annoyed or wants to know you can just look in the comments but it's um God the poor bloke was in tears and they were they were tearing him from his I think from his girlfriend's house and you know Pepsi it's really hard to put the two and the two together to justify what you're seeing it's just horrible he's a really really nice guy he's he does so much for other people and he's it's like he's harmless but back to your story Terry sorry so what was it like then rocking up in tenor reef as a as a young woman it sounds a bit idyllic oh well I first went to tenor reef when I was 15 years old and the first as soon as I stepped off that plane I was like oh I want to live here this is great because Veronica's was huge back then it was like a hundred bars and discos all topped on top of one another it was jam packed down there and it was just yeah it was just the life basically on this lovely island with sun 24 7 and then all these clubs and yeah and I remember walking down there the first night obviously with my mum and dad then because yeah I was quite young and I just thought yeah I want to be this I want I want to live here so yeah and obviously it took me quite a while to move out there and yeah I think I was about 22 and I eventually went but we've gone on holiday every year running up to that me moving there and yeah it's just a dream come true really to be working in sort of an idyllic situation yeah it's a I think it's I think there can't be a lot of children that don't cross their minds that they want to travel at some point in their life and just go away and work in either sort of like Ibiza and all them sort of areas yeah yeah and I'm yeah it was it's beautiful yeah yeah it's the heat that hits you getting off the plane yeah and it's been freezing here again yeah this time last year in lockdown I was very brown it was very warm and this year has been miserable yeah so we've been in this awful predicament again but the weather's been bad and of course it's funny you know because two years ago today it was the last time I was in Tenerife for my birthday so I called over there today to say to me I haven't seen you for two years I've not been back in this island for two years I've had six holidays cancelled yeah and yeah and I'm stuck in miserable Britain and all I want to do is feel that heat when I walk off the airplane I'm gonna bleed but yeah it's um oh it's even in the winter sort of like for us it got colder but yeah it's still warm up yeah still oh it's lovely yeah it's um it's it's one of them if you like sun at the pace what's the first sort of job you did over there because I know you did some of this bar bar promotion work that's the work yeah so when sort of when I first got there it was all very much the hype and being in the thick of it and and so yeah I was like a PR down on Veronica's yeah yeah that's um that was my first sort of job um before sort of like it all went wrong and then after sort of that sort of after the problem that's when I got proper jobs so yeah the first sort of year I was all about the party scene and that's where it was thick in Veronica's being a PR yeah earning absolutely nothing but not giving a care in the world we were having great fun yeah so a thousand potatoes and I if that if that but still we were loving life yeah loving it what what year was it so we can all yeah um so I moved there in 1996 yeah yeah that was yeah after the sort of dance era in the youth well not after but yeah it was just no yeah it was it was still in it was still in full flow though wasn't it in 1996 it wasn't it wasn't like my first sort of party my first rave I think I went to in 1990 1991 because I started yeah I started work at the sanctuary in 1992 um yeah so I was I was ficking the rave scene absolutely in it up to out here so um yeah I was um an exodus girl um so I was in the free party scene before I went into the the the sort of more clobbier scene of the sanctuary um but yeah I was in the thick of it and these these names that you're saying are they in in tannery for they in oh they're back here in the UK exodus was the illegal party scene from lutan which was the original free parties they were the movement that that that put the people out in the party scene and then after that was the big sanctuary which was in milton keens which was a purpose built rave for yeah yeah for just it was held over 3000 people and oh it was brilliant oh and then they ripped it down well if it was it was took our sanctuary but they literally purpose built this warehouse for race so I got a job behind the bar so I got paid to rave really yeah it was brilliant yeah love that job and then sort of when I moved to tannery if it was still that but not that rave scene it was more of the sort of handbaggy garage sort of move yeah yeah was it like a lot of sort of euro dance like um corona rhythm of the night and yeah um all them sort of yeah yeah it was it was um yeah it was a 19 yeah 1996 97 sort of um that sort of era of not not sort of the the bouncy rave um like happy hardcore so you moved on yeah it was more the party sort of club scene but but more garagy sort of um yeah it wasn't as hard I don't think there was anywhere in tannery from apart from a little club which is more spanish orientated that had more that sort of music but not not the heavy rave scene that was back in the UK yeah got yeah so I was on ib for a few years ago and my god let's just let's just say anything that you wanted to buy koff koff was just everywhere it wasn't you you just asked any taxi driver right and then not only did he you know did they buy it like like that but also um it was top not stuff especially as everything in the UK had been pants for years by this stage right so was that the same in tannery was I'm guessing there was a lot a lot of mules coming coming yeah oh um sort of so when I was back in the UK in the rave scene obviously yeah I was doing sort of from more of the ecstasy and the the um the amphetamine um and a couple of the acid so it was more more of the sort of the the rave scene as such um and yeah and it was only when the pills got really bad when the abets died that I decided yeah I'm not doing this anymore so they were very clean and then all of a sudden yeah it all become very scary for me because somebody died it was like no I'm not doing them anymore so um yeah I can't remember the last time I did work I think it must have been what 1991-92 and I never touched one since she died basically but when sort of like in tannery I can't remember ever being a lot of pills being about I can't but there was a hell of a lot of cocaine it was more it was more your party scene for cocaine than what it was then I can't remember there being any amphetamine over there or acid or but there probably was and there probably was ecstasy but um it was more about the cocaine yeah and how was all this coming to the island um I mean I'm looking at the geography now it it is kind of a direct hop from South America isn't it yeah well when obviously me and Antonio went to Brazil on this holiday where he came back with the cocaine we you cannot fly direct from um sort of make a tannery to Brazil so we had to go into the canary island we had to hop over into the canary to go on the holiday so but then usually what happens is because when I found out in the prisons in mainland Spain is when they're coming from South America to um it's Amsterdam the run they drop into Madrid to refuel and that's where most of the drugs get caught it's in Madrid um so that's where it's coming into from South America and then obviously goes out into the islands um but that's the main sort of drop-off is is into the mainland not not the canary islands as such I'm not sure the ins and outs of it all onto the island of what and how it all gets in there but obviously it does but I'm not sure I it's I suppose they have all their little mules that bring it in and out um like Antonio um but then it's it was always bigger than him it he was not he's not the big boy so no did I gather a hint from your book had you got into can we just say into trouble with coke or was it just oh god yeah yeah I got quite a bit of a habit by then yeah yeah it's um it's quite an easy one to get into a habit with to be honest with you yeah um like like with ecstasy and amphetamine it was always about the party um it was always touching guys that was always a weak everything whereas in tenerife it's 24 seven you literally because you're in the thick of it and in a party yeah and it's there all the time and because you have to it's it's like the dutch courage is we used to call it and the fact is that yeah long working nights and it's it's just part and parcel of the job out there well obviously not all of them I put a lot of them yeah yeah so yeah I get it when I lived when I lived in Hong Kong when I was addicted to crystal meth it you could go you could go I mean I wouldn't go out the house of sometimes four in the morning yeah go downtown meet all my mates that all be in the club and it's like all right and we just start dancing and yeah yeah yeah well then tenerife it's yeah it were most of the nightlife doesn't start till nine ten eleven o'clock at night and and you can still go literally all the way through yeah it's um it's a bit like Ibiza really in the height of the summer that's just literally part party party party so um but yeah um I I think this is why I was under the assumption that you were somewhere from like America zone because obviously we don't have crystal meth here thank god it's not really my shores I um yeah it's it's quite um yeah thank god it hasn't really hit Britain yeah because it is it's gosh yes it's another ball game all together um there's there's there's sort of addictions and then there's there's that one yeah and it wears me out thinking about it to be honest with you um yeah it's um I'm just glad it's never got here as much really um yeah I I I I honor you for what you've come through because yeah that's hard work very hard well it's really kind to say um I just should point out friend people listen so we don't all get confused is like my battle was with addiction it was a mental health condition yeah the party lives that that was the good well wasn't always good and people died but you know that wasn't the issue I'm for the most part had a great time or at least thought I was having a great time met amazing people and learned massive amounts about myself that I was basically told I was a failure in in school so my um my challenge Terry I don't know how well you're late as it was like coming from a traumatized childhood yeah I was naturally predisposed to want to bury this trauma and of course if you give me a substance whether it's chocolate cough that coffee was my first addiction it was coffee at 10 years old used to run home from school to put the kettle on for a coffee I didn't know why I did that obviously looking back it was my first you know me trying to bury this yeah yeah but um I'm not I'm not quite sure why I was trying to bury nothing really well I was later on um but I think the initial but I I think with the party drugs it wasn't about getting addicted to it it wasn't about taking thousands of pills every day because that wasn't how it wasn't you couldn't have done that back then anyway it was all about the party at the weekend and it was all about just going out and having fun and the music and and just feeling the love because it was the arm of God the race I I won't tell you I love I still like to go out to raise um just not they're not as sort of like what they were back then but um I still love the music I still about it is all about the music it was never it was never about the drugs and it was more about the people in in the park because you will never take them memories away from oh I've got some yeah wonderful memories of my very big day but that wasn't that wasn't an issue then and I never took drugs then to escape I think I took drugs then because it was more of a curiosity thing and the fact is that I had to stay awake all night and apart and parcel with the beauty it went with that if it so it wasn't I don't know but it was later on that I used substances to numb the pain basically of what I was going through with the trials and what my dad's death and it was all different things like that so and that was when the darker days come in but the original even in Tenerife the first sort of time that I was with there and doing little bits and bobs it was it was quite fun it was only till later that I realized yeah I might have a little bit of problem here but then with your that addiction with crystal meth because I will say I remember being at a drug meeting when we first come out of prison and there was a little lad there and he tried it and his words were I had to go back on the crack because I felt like I've been raped and that was that way and I was like oh okay right we'll move along the bus then so yeah it's I think it's a totally different ball game so about then all addictions are addictions but this one I even I get worn out thinking about how I cope with it so yeah I hold my hands up to you every day because yeah I don't think I've probably got through that one no no I should point out as well just to keep us all grounded it was the alcohol was the alcohol was the way way were I should be honest about the meth I completely lost my mentor you know I I literally went I was phasing in and out of psychosis and the bad periods of psychosis were really bad I mean I was walking down the street talking to myself and you know I imagine that guy was talking to me so I'd go and talk to him and of course he'd look at me going who the frick are you I've seen videos of people on it obviously because I've seen documentaries but I've never personally ever come into contact because as I said it's not here but alcohol yes I'm glad you brought because obviously alcohol is my biggest issue alcohol for me oh my good and and I can just go out my house again so yeah that me has been my biggest problem because it's everywhere and and it's yeah oh god so I do dread to think how much I drunk in Tenerife I really I to this day I'm surprised I come home or my liver came home with me to be honest with you but but alcohol is yeah it's it's hard work yeah I yeah very hard you know we're in a mental health let's call it what it is it's an epidemic in this country there's so many unhappy people everything that's just gone on is going to make it so much what I mean people have just been drinking all day long in their houses and and it's I'm not pointing this out to upset anyone I'm pointing out to tell you the truth that as a substance misuse specialist yeah the worst thing we worked with was the alcohol everything else causes so much chaos that you just you have to give it up you know you can only be clinically insane for so long before you have to have a word with yourself right or but the alcohol is so it's it's legal everybody pushes it on you no one recognize you very few people recognize the danger so it's like go and have another one when when it's destroying you your family and your children are being neglected you know or or physically or mentally abused and your mates are still going go and have another one yeah and in the end I used to say yeah I'll have another just could you phone my misses and just check that's all right and then they'd go oh all right yeah I get it sorry sorry and it's like yeah yeah it's fucking you're not you're thinking about you yeah yeah well to be fair I should have realized that yeah I would have had issues with alcohol not not that see my mum and dad were very very good with it that they they get me drinking in front of them um it was never hiding away but I remember getting drunk for the very first time and I was on a twinning in Labrux here and I was only 14 mine and I snuck two bottles of wine off and drunk the whole lot and I nearly died my mum found me up in a forest being sick and that was my first alcohol experience now really I should have realized then but yeah possibly not not not for me maybe I should not get on the edge and and that was as young as that age but then back then we were binge huge huge binge drinks oh my goodness it was it was massive massive binge drinking at the weekends and yeah but I can't ever say that my mum and dad didn't teach me about alcohol because they did actually let me drink with them and in front of them so it wasn't the fact that yeah I was hiding in a corner in a hedge um but obviously back then I still didn't have very very strict ways with alcohol at all no no and I've seen more damage done through my life with with with families through alcohol totally totally but but this pandemic has sent everybody see the thing is Chris I when when I went through all my trouble with the in the time the 14 years I had my issues um with with everything I was all by myself on the prison bus nobody else was going through what I was going through nobody knew what I felt but this time everybody's on the bus with me and everybody knows how we were feeling and now they're all turning into alcoholics because they couldn't go so maybe they'll realise why I went wrong because this is how yeah it yeah it's quite frightening life's all about the journey and life was all about what happened to me um and yeah just as I thought I got it right yeah something else is coming yeah it dropped it all out so yeah yeah it had to be brought up as as much as anything because yeah this this has been another lock lock lock well locked up locked down not anything really yeah yeah of course of course it's got deeper implications for you hasn't it yeah yeah and everybody because everybody said to me oh god you'll know this you've been in prison for three and a half years uh no let's not think about that let's think about the fact that this has brought back terrible memories of me being stuck back in a cell I think I think that people don't realise this um yeah three and a half years long time to be in a prison and uh and then for me to be enforced into a situation again here of which yeah it's been very similar to being back in prison back to your story so you've met this guy yeah and you've gone to Brazil you thought you're going on a trip and his wife couldn't make it and was it in Madrid that they pulled you no it was in Gran Canaria because as I said we were living in Tenerife at the time and so to get to Brazil we had to fly fly via Gran Canaria so it's only a short flight from Tenerife there's only about 20 minute flights so from Gran Canaria to Brazil so it's dropping into Gran Canaria airport that here's Banks but stopped yeah wow and that moment it it again from reading your book and and the magazine articles it it's it sounds like an episode of banged up abroad when the the the code goes everywhere um yeah it was in my life yeah it was well everything was perfect and within seconds my life just went yeah upside down within seconds I went from being this carefree young girl living in Tenerife having the time of my life to being a frightened fugitive basically yeah and I'd never been arrested before and to be arrested in an airport with with a lot of drugs with guns to heads and and people shouting at me in Spanish yet it was like a movie like a surreal it's like I stepped into an episode or a film but I was in it and yeah I didn't want to be in it yeah it was horrible it was it was surreal very surreal that yeah your one given time your life can change in seconds so in that moment what did it become blindingly obvious what had happened or were you sort of in shock or in denial or did you realize this guy was trying to in import gear and now he'd been caught and you were tied into it with him yeah um so what happened was our bags were both checked obviously they checked mine nothing in it and then they checked his and the first one they were fine the second one obviously they got a bit suspicious of them they were doing this and then they took him into the back room and left me outside with my toilet here but the toilet and the next thing I know that's when obviously they discovered the false bottom in it and that's when they pulled me into the room and that's when yeah and that and I walked in and I was like what the hell's going on in here and and and then I knew something obviously wasn't right and that's when they'd obviously discovered the four-keyed coke was in the bottom and it was flying everywhere absolutely they've been because they were trying to shovel it into bin bags and um that's when I realized but then because I was so young and so very silly and naive and then Antonio was shouting out and then shouting at me saying no no it's fine fine she nothing to do with it no me I mean it was all about so he was trying to tell me don't worry because like I'm going to tell them you're not involved I'm going to tell them to let you go and it'll be all over so then I was sat there thinking well yeah I haven't got nothing to do with it so it's all here so I won't get arrested I'll be fine I'm just going to walk out and go home and everything's going to be all right and then as it slowly they locked me in a cupboard for hours of which I was jet lag so I I must have fallen asleep in there then they pulled me out and questioned me like three or four questions which weren't very well translated at all and then they put me back in the cupboard and then they brought me back out of the cupboard and that's when they put the handcuff oh sorry that's all right there we go yeah um then they put the handcuffs on me and that's when I sort of knew oh something wrong here um and they put my coat over the top of it so to make it so that I didn't look like I've been arrested but then I was surrounded by quiet civil officers and yeah it didn't look right sort of the past so then they they took me up to the local police station in in Grand Canaria and then it hit me in there and and then I knew I was in a lot of trouble and I could not stop crying and it was it wasn't until that moment that I knew something wasn't right and then when we got took down the following morning because we were took to court me and Antonio they cut us in a cell together and that's when I said to him what the hell's going on and he said no no no it's fine I'm going to I'm going to make sure you don't ever go to prison and that I'm I'm going to tell him who I work for it's fine I will always look after you but this is Spain Antonio this is Spain you're not going to protect me because they don't care I'm with you and that's all that matters and that was it really and that's the last time I really saw him I saw him at court the following year and yeah and I because none of it was translated to me I was only in there for an hour with him were you having a sort of affair with him or no no no no no he was um yeah Antonio for me was more like a father figure I'd known Antonio for years before moving out there because obviously um I I've been out there lots of summers before um and I worked for a month a couple of years running up to moving out there just to get a feel for it so I knew him quite well and at that time I was missing the family a little bit and my dad he was a lot older than me and yeah I used to go up there and talk to him quite a lot but then he always had the drops so yeah it was um more of a he's he's can we say he's used you isn't he because he didn't want to be going for an airport on his own it would have looked no that's what he said to me but then again we didn't look quite the part really because yeah I was yeah I was quite young and he was quite older so really yeah we didn't quite fit the bell so no I think yeah obviously they have their own mindset of thinking about how they're traffic drugs and obviously when you swallow it's a different ball game but when you're carrying in bags yeah they try and take a mule or not a mule with them but and accomplish with them so that it looks a little bit easier going through but then I don't know if it was all explained to him because every bag from South America gets checks so I don't know whether he thought like in Heathrow we were going through nothing to declare or declare whereas no when you're all coming back from South America every bag gets checked but I don't know in this country because I've never flown to South America from Britain so I don't know what the procedure is here I don't know because I've never come for an airport here from that far yeah but I well I know a lot of it's done on intelligence so isn't it they know already who they go and search because they're and in some countries it's all corrupt they're they literally some that they'll take 10 drugmills knowing nine of them they're going to let through because they're getting a backhander and the one that they they're like a sacrificial lamb because if they grab the one it looks like they're doing their job yeah well I know they know who it's going to be so so when you when you get sent on this job the people in the airport already know before you've even like got on the plane that when you come back it's going to be that person this is what I gather from the band up abroad programs anyway yeah I think with Antonio because obviously he worked for two police officers in a judge right so he he was under the assumption that he was just one he was going straight through and nobody was going to bring an eyelid down but the cocaine that he was carrying was 50% basically it was absolute pure crap basically and yeah in this country the judge would have probably said to him I don't know where to get that from and then I always knew well looking back on it now I think I know who's taking the big lot through and because they were busy yeah so it's all it's all some again you just later on all things fit into place and you think oh yeah I think I know what was going on there um yeah so it is I think it's all corruption but then yeah well they bust the guy who's got the rubbish stuff the the person behind him with a good stuff walks through but then again what was Antonio's rubbish or was it quite pure up they bashed it took what they wanted to take out of it and then put what they wanted to put forward this is Spain this is Spain so I'm going to say most likely I mean yeah most likely they love that stuff over there they're not all of them but and the fact is that the the people that he were working for were very high up uh very and and you you do wonder that yeah they took theirs put something else in because 50% base cocaine from Colombia I'm sorry obviously no it's it's not washing with me now um no and um yeah most of the banged up abroad I have watched on there um yeah that most of the stuff that they bought for you is yeah it's it's more pure coming back from Colombia uh uh what what see there's that thing isn't there that Latino men so I'm talking well Euro Latino so Portugal Spain they can be really fricking violent can't they oh god yeah yeah yeah and I I've always said to this day that thank god we didn't get stopped going out of the airport in Brazil because I'm like well wouldn't be no no neither of us would be here for one I don't think we'd have got out of the airport and for two I wouldn't have survived their prisons yeah no I meant the um the the the Latinos as in the Spanish what I mean is my my I was on ship for a year and it we pulled into Portugal all right yeah I know what you're on about we're all getting rowdy in one of their bars it was actually a square in Lisbon in Portugal and we were everyone started all the whole ship's company was starting to misbehave and then on a queue when someone actually started to get like fisty coffee all the barmen jumped over the bar they grabbed chains not axes I mean it wasn't that bad but they were grabbing chains baseball bats and they weren't afraid to just plow in the news and when the police turned up they didn't it wasn't like an English cop or so tell me what's happened here right what's your stuff none of that it grab you throw you in a wagon yeah cart you off and and it's even a bit like that in um even in Scandinavia I mean I've been stopped by Swedish police in there just fucking horrible you know well I think my first I knew about the Tenerife police the Guadalajara and the local police I'd heard rumors about the corruption even when I was a holidaymaker over there but I think my first worst sort of scenario was I was in one of the nightclubs and yeah it was quite early hours of the morning and two officers walked in with guns on yeah two lines up the nose took a watercash and walked out and I looked at them and thought hi and this is what we're up against okay got ya so um yeah and then two went out fizzles on the red on cocaine with two guns strapped to him so yeah it was um yeah that was my first sort of um yeah so I think yeah life is going to be quite tough over there I think that's the only thing that Mars the islands all of them is is the police and the Guadalajara and it's just the pure corruption that goes on within the walls of the islands that that will always ruin the life over there so because I've always thought yeah I'd love to go back I'd love to go back in there and live because it's the island for me was never the issue it's my lifestyle that's quite a chaotic problem and then I I sit back and think oh my god could I cope with all that corruption again and could I cope with all these problems and I know the police here aren't exceptionally great sometimes but at least in our court system you've got sort of like a legal leg to stand on and you've got a hope in hella chance of getting somewhere but yeah that frightens me over there still to this day but but to be fair the amount of people I've met over the years and the horror stories that I've heard from different countries yeah I possibly wouldn't travel again if I listened to and took all of them into so yeah I think sometimes you have to realise that wrong time wrong place really but the corruption is is rife in most foreign countries yeah you especially being an English person yeah it's um it's vile yeah but I've heard I've got some of the horror stories that I've heard over the years from people I've met yeah I do wonder if I would ever travel again so it's a shame it's a big shame huge huge shame yeah well Billy's story isn't it Billy Moore god that the beginning of his film um or the film that was made about his his book so what was it a prayer before dawn prayer before dawn friends if you get a chance to watch Billy's read Billy's book or watch the film oh my god in the first 10 minutes I'll make you sick yeah yeah it made me feel really really oh because I think in the justice system throughout the world is quite quite but I think the prison systems are prisons prison wherever you are but Thailand is totally different because I even said to Billy I don't know how you are I seriously don't I know that my prison sentence and everybody's prison sentence is different wherever you are in the world but I just Thailand's just totally off the rictus girl it it's another prison sentence within it says like South America as well you may as well not because they don't run the inside of the prison don't they it's not it's not actually the guards look after him mate so it's literally a prison within the prison walls and then it's run by the prisoners so I'm not sure even if I would have got out of a South American prison to be honest again no and but Billy's stories he gets heart wrenching yeah some of the things that he had to go through yeah I went to visit a girl in prison I think I was in Ecuador um what you can do so friends at home when you're backpacking around the world you can go into the uh I won't even pretend I remember but there's various services that you can contact them and say look I'm I'm in so-and-so are there any British prisoners in in the local Nick and they'll give you the names of the people that have put their name down to be visited because obviously their family's a long way away yeah there or was I think it was Ecuador and very violent place again and lots of people arrested for for drugs uh drug currying and I rocked up there and um you do all the get search and everything don't you you go in and then I'm sat in this waiting room in this girl coming she went hurry I was asleep what what who are you and I said I'll come to visit she's like really oh thank you and I bought her a big big like big pack of toilet rows because apparently that's one of the things that they they really had hard to get and and she was saying that everything she had she had to hustle for so you gotta start a little business so hers was she got a coffee maker from the consulate bought her a coffee maker then she can make little coffees for people yeah then she bought a bed a mattress with a floor and then she bought a bed it was like yeah uh but yeah I think I think the prison said it's like in Spain yeah the conditions weren't great at all um but they weren't on the level of some of the prisons that people have been in I think more to the fact that the Spanish it's a corruption that goes on although in in the Spanish prison um I think it's because of the fact that you're in mixed prisons and it's it's all just a different it's a different world out there but yeah that we had very few of our privileges as such and most of it if mum hadn't had the money to support me yeah I think life would have been totally different in the Spanish prison for me and I couldn't work because I was an English girl so they wouldn't let me work for my money um and of course visits are very few and far between um and then phone calls and letters and did it so yeah um although yeah I couldn't even imagine and I have seen footage of obviously the South American conditions and Thailand but um yeah it's I couldn't even imagine being in prison there to be honest with you I it was bad enough where I was um and I I I I can't I don't know how anybody gets through them sentences at all to be honest with you because it was a struggle to get through mine in the conditions that I was in let alone what they've been through yeah it's tough it's tough thinking about but I don't I don't try to dwell on that bit of it at the end of the day I've got through it and yeah and I'm here to talk to people right yeah what it don't don't you don't have to say anything that is gonna like set you anything Terry but what was it like when you first had to call your parents then and say I'm I'm in a bit of bother the first phone right so yeah I was arrested on the first morning and then I was took to yeah took up to the local police owner I wouldn't let the consulate phone my mum you see because I was an avail I said no you're not calling her um because obviously I was under the assumption I was going to walk out of there and I wasn't going to have to call them um and um it wasn't until I got to the prison on the to the room was it Friday Friday night time it was and I remember walking in there and one of the girls in there was from like was it Norway and one one of them and she she was the only one in the prison that spoke English anyway and she lent me her phone card quickly and I literally phoned my mum and I it was a six o'clock on a Friday night mum I've been arrested I'm in Grand Canary Airport I need barrel money and I had to put the phone down and that was it that's all I had oh my god and I tried to think what was at the other end here because that's six o'clock Friday night everything was shut no phone calls to me mate and I've just dropped the biggest clanger that they've ever had in the lifetime in three words and then put the phone down you imagine I can't even imagine what they went through at that time I was bad enough the fact is I had to make that little phone call but you imagine what was happening here and and they couldn't do anything they couldn't make any but they didn't even know hardly where I really was because I just stopped the set and they didn't even have been on holiday to South America this was oh my god is yeah I do I do actually think about Jesus Christ because it Western Union wasn't that easy back then transferring money was quite hard experience so yeah and of course no consulates was open no this no I can't even I think mum called John Burko I can't remember I think it was she called the MP and then he made directly I found out where I was I think this is how it all ricocheted through the weekend and then and then I think they got the money wired over on the Tuesday morning because obviously yeah nothing was open till yeah so I had to stay in there till then you got bail then yeah I got bail originally yeah this is where all the problems came in because they actually bailed me out of the prison back to Tenerife without a passport and that's where the justice system all goes a little bit wrong after that because it's all about this money and it's all about crop solicitors it's all about more money and yeah and you just don't know whether you're coming or going really so was was was jumping bail an option well see when I came out um I've been out what a week and mum flew over and we talked and we talked and we said right we're going to fight this um so we went to see a solicitor and um and then that's when I had the aneurysm I had to fight your brain Henry John the Friday so she flew out I think it was a Sunday and then on the Friday I got really ill and then I was in hospital for six weeks you see and by that and I've missed all my deportation orders I've missed everything so and then I was so ill um that yeah that wasn't an option then it was it was I had to stay and I had to fight it so no doing a runner at that point was not not even on the card and mum sort of said because mum's a very honest and very um woman that she said look right if if you've done nothing wrong we're going to fight it and we're going to fight because obviously we didn't know about the corruption over there we didn't know about the legal system but so she yeah she said we're going to fight this we're going to get a good solicitor and we're going to fight it yeah but then I was so ill anyway nothing everything was stuck up my hands at that point so and what was it like then Terry when you when the judge said 10 years oh well he didn't right so this this is another thing so in England don't mean you we go through the airport together you've got drugs in your suitcase I've got no drugs in my suitcase but I'm with you so we initially would be arrested and then we obviously I don't even know half the time we've up through paperwork that I'd be taken to to the the police cells or I would just be cautioned or maybe yet or given a call date um but you obviously plead guilty and then I plead not guilty so then you probably stand remind and but we'd be separated totally separated but at this point I would never see you again and you wouldn't see me especially at trial because then you go for sentencing and then I'd have to go to trial and they'd have to prove that I was involved and to prove that sort of it's very difficult in the UK to prove a conspiracy case that you would actually knowingly with especially if you come up and said yeah no I work for XYZ and these aren't my drugs but I'm the one carrying them and she had nothing to do with it it would that be it separated gone in Tenerife my we both go to the court both sit there there's no pleas put in there's no guilty or not guilty he stood up and talked for an hour of which I still to this day have no idea what he said because none of it was translated to me um he just kept pointing at me so I hope he wasn't saying yeah it's all there um so and then I think they asked me three or four questions one of them being which one's your suitcase the green one oh the one without the drugs in yeah that's it and that was it we got we walked out I went back to Tenerife for my aeroplane he went back to the prison got on the aeroplane lawyers like oh oh they're fine finish over with you'll be fine two days later we get a phone call from the court I've been sentenced to 10 years on a phone call with a 76 million per se to fine and and and then they but you're not going to prison yet because you can appeal and then and then it's the next one and so it was just it was the biggest circus of the of a court case you never probably yeah but they probably it's quite a few out there but it is nothing compared to how you would be tried back in the UK it is absolutely ridiculous at that point then was it not just tempting to no by this time I was into it was that thick of it and that much media was involved it wasn't really an option at that time for me to get on a plane and run out so we just we've got more lawyers who were corrupt and wanted more money so mum went to be done with like nearly 60 grand deep in debt here to be honest with you I've actually got quite a good life over there now because I've got a job and proper house everything was more normal there was a normal life it wasn't the chaotic Veronica's life it was a nice life and I liked my life in Tenerife I'm a little cat I'm a little house I was yeah loving life again and at that point I didn't really want to come home so it wasn't until the year 2000 that we we were just getting quite sick of it all and then John Burk the MP John Burko got a letter from the one of the foreign officer feet which said in the translation she was released in 97 on the date with no read mission so then he said well is it not all over and I said well I don't know because we've heard nothing from the lawyers I don't know where the appeals got so mum and dad said to me at the Manelium because they flew out to spend that big new year with me and I said to him shall I apply for a new passport and they said why not so I filled all the forms out they took it home week later what arrived in my mum and dad's doorstep new passport mum said well that's it gotta be over so I said well I'll come home then so then we what was it we I think it was we planned to come home in the February now I I sort of knew we were doing something wrong but we yeah it was it was we didn't know basically we did think it was all over but I half of me knew that it possibly wasn't so what we did because of the aneurysm I didn't fly so well I didn't want to fly all the way back to Britain but then we didn't want to fly all the way back to the Gandford passport control so what we did was we we went out of Tenerife to Madrid and then got the overnight plane from Madrid to Paris because there's no passport control and then it was coming through so we got Paris to Waterloo and it was coming back through Waterloo so imagine we'd come all this way high in two days traveling yeah loads of bags and thinking yeah walk through Waterloo little shit coming at you too they were adamant me and mum were carrying drugs adamant but little did they know it was me I was the problem but they took my passport off twice checked it no problem because of course then there was no major interpower was there was no talk in between countries and there was no European arrest warrant at that point so I wasn't flagging up on their system that I would want it so yeah they let us vote but if they had to check the bags properly in one of the bags was receipts from Tesco the day before my mum had bought it off the daily counter so yeah it was hindsight now because I spoke to quite a few people within the prison system about this what we've done coming home and they said your mum you put her in such a vulnerable situation because if you then she would have been arrested as well and that carries a huge sentence for carrying a fugitive back into the country so looking back on her yeah it was it was very naughty what we did it I'm very yeah sort of bad of me for putting her into that bad situation which I didn't think was a bad situation but could have been really quite for mum to get me home but then at that time I just wanted to come home and it was a good job that I did come home because in the April my father's diagnosed with cancer and now looking back on it all I really don't think I would have coped with that if me being stuck out there so sometimes things happen for a reason for you to come home yeah and it wasn't until 2003 that they issued the European arrest warrant and then they come and arrested me again at home and this is eight years on no yeah no six years on from the initial arrest so yeah it's been um but I I'll be honest with you Chris the the only person I blame for all this fiasco within the legal system was the original judge that bailed me because if she had never bailed me I would have run through the the system and maybe have had a better chance of fighting the case within the prison because hopefully well you never know but it might have stepped in a bit more and helped me out because then they could have followed the court cases they could have helped me through the procedures but because this initial judge gave me bail it all went wrong from then on but they always say that they think that they give you bail so you'll do a run and go home so then your system but then why why pick me up and blur me european arrest warrant so many years on and cause all the fucking yeah rigmarole again because I had to fight in court case here for two and a half years to try and fight my extradition because it was all because I got arrested under the old warrant so mine was yeah mine was the last case in britain to be done on the old warrant that's why it was thrown up in the court in the in the press because um yeah the new warrant was literally they come to your house pick you up and throw you out the airport and you don't even have a chance to fight the case here anymore so they wanted to know how I fell and that's why the media took such a big interest in it but then then the government didn't help me either so how long was it between what happened in the airport you getting arrested and you actually go in and serve in your time at that it's that sounds like a load of years yeah eight years was that yeah eight and a half years and how many did you have to serve over there I did well I I went back thinking that I'd have to do the full 10 that's when I initially got onto the airplane that's exactly what I thought I was going to do with the full 10 years so when I stepped foot onto the island um fair trials international was still following my case so they helped me to get a fresh lawyer to apply for the pardon because a royal pardon all the indolent parts they call it it's the last procedure in there when you've rinsed or the court that's the last thing you can apply for it's a bit like in Thailand I think with the with the pardoning so I they found me a lawyer which I was very dubious of um getting because of the problems that we'd had previously um but she just won a massive court case through drugs and she got her notch so she was adamant and she she knew she'd win it so I only saw her the once in the prison and she was very confident um because she'd won this initial case um that she would win mine so that was fine it was it was a very small amount compared to all the risk of the money that poor mum had laid out but I knew it would take a long time to get through so at that point I thought well I need to go back home again because I need to go on a repack because of the fact that mum it was too much for mum to visit me over there all the time and I just wanted to come back to Britain because it was a lot easier so I applied for the repatriation and um I served 19 months in Spain and then 19 months back here in the UK and then I was granted the royal pardon or partial pardon um and they dropped my sentence from 10 to 6 years so on time served I got out on the the prison licence so yeah I did about three and a half years in the end and then three three three years on the licence so jeez what a bloody rigmarole for something you didn't do in the first place that's the how have you come to terms with that injustice Terry um well I think over the years is I can't live with it's like hate treat it's a lot people say to me do you hate Antonio no I don't hate him because he did what he did I don't like him a lot but I don't hate him because it's a bit of a strong emotion um with with what went on with me it I it's I don't know how to explain it to you I try not to yeah I am very angry with the the legal system but I can't I can't live with the anger because it yeah it will lead me up again and um and I've got enough bits of issues to deal with to try and live my life as normal now as I can um yeah but I meet so many people that have had an injustice against them it's unreal so I'm not I'm not the only one and I won't be the only one ever again um because once you think something's all right it's not all right and once you think you've gone top of something it and I I won't fight that on my own um I've I've I've done lots of talks for European lawyers and um all different um sort of um with fair trials international and prisoners abroad but I remember doing one talk with a lot of European lawyers and I remember a little Spanish girl coming up to me at the end and saying that she tried to be legit but she had Guadiraville outside her house she was threatened she was this and she said how do I fight good with bad because I'm just fighting every day against a system that has got it up against you so yeah and it is it's how do how do they do it how how in a system that is so bad do do you fight fight fight it really it's yeah it's quite frustrating really but at the end of the day I've been through what I've been through um and it's made me who I am today um it it's been tough I won't deny it it's been really tough but then I'm not the only one there's a lot of people out there with big stories a lot worse than mine yeah that's a that's a good way to look at it yeah but but it it's it's it's like possibly with you I only wrote the book is to give people knowledge of what they are letting themselves in for um sometimes knowledge is a better foresee but then there's always people out there that will be making mistakes and there's always a need for drugs and there's always a need for this and there's always so there'll always be a need for somebody to be bringing them drugs into the country or somebody to be doing this or somebody to be the x y z and we all know that this is how the world goes but yeah prison's tough if you're a boy girl or whatever it's it's it's tough I see because I know most grown men if you don't want to be in prison yes it's it's not it's not a good place right can we finish then Terry sorry if this is a bit cliche but what what was it like then when you fought finally walked out those gates well I didn't look back they told me never look back and I didn't I've I never looked back and I've never looked back that that was their one advice to me when I walked out that prison don't look back to me and we won't be seeing you again I also know you won't know and um but it wasn't it was it was a bit odd how I was released because they they got words in the afternoon that my palm papers are coming we I had a funny feeling that it wouldn't be long um but yeah they it was the last thing that that nom's the offender management unit opened up the email in the afternoon she was going home and then they had to sort of do the dates out and I remember my name being called the tunnel I'd just been on the phone to my mum moaning about the fact that nothing had been happening and um and I thought oh my god and I walked in and the governor was in there and I thought oh my god get s***ed out what was I wrong she said better pack your bags you're going home I was like you're kidding me I literally run out of there phoned my mum and screamed out mum mum I've been released come get me put the phone down again and that was it so from start to finish she had one phone call in Gran Canaria telling her that I've been arrested and then one phone call screaming at her to come and get me because I've been let out so these two phone calls are very prominent in my sentence and um but it didn't sink in because I was released at seven o'clock that night and I remember coming home here um because I was under a prison license so I couldn't get involved with the media nobody could be told that I'd been released until later on so I come on very quietly and I woke up at five o'clock in the morning and I was walking about the house thinking Jesus is this real and then mum got up as well and it was it was like we dreamt it it was it was it was possibly the most surreal moment in my life but then two phone calls after prominent in my life the one to tell her I've been arrested and the one to tell her I've been released and they were literally three or four words screaming out put the phone down so yeah it was surreal um but I I write deny Chris life life's not been easy since I've been out not at all and um yeah I don't suppose it it will get much easier for a while but it might calm down one day one day I'd recommend to anyone if you're struggling what on my youtube channel I've got a playlist one of my playlists called The Commando Coach and it it's just I'd recommend anyone struggling just go and watch it binge watch it over a weekend there's they're all short videos we also have a life coaching group on facebook called um if you just go facebook forward slash groups sorry facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash chris thrall and we just have a very positive happy group on facebook we don't let any mainstream nonsense into it no so you're not going to see anything about um you know what's been on the news or anything like that because we don't believe we don't believe in watching it and people are positive we we we get up in the morning we smile at the sun to say thank you for our lives we jog around the block or walk around the block or cycle or whatever we have a green smoothie at lunchtime because it makes us feel mental in a good way and and we always take action every day towards our perfect future and when we're not feeling it that's fine we sit on the couch and we we have a chill day two days week month whatever it takes to get us back and um these simple philosophies terry have really helped a lot of people um you know we've got people recovering from some very nasty illnesses and stuff and and and a lot of them have never heard of things like alkaline diet and and and you know showing gratitude for life which is a you know which which you've done when when you say there's always people that got it worse that's being grateful isn't it for for what we've got so anyway you're more than welcome to to to join us there yes um what what does the future hold and your book is passport to hell i'm looking at it now i'll i'll put a link below folks very well written so there we go um so at the moment um obviously i want to get through this little blip in our lives again and then hopefully life might come back to some sort of normality whatever normal is um um we are in talks at the moment have been for quite a few years about putting this on the big screen um and um yeah and that is something that i'd like to happen i think that um there's a lot of messages to come out in it um and it's got the rave scene and yeah it's got all the issues that i went through um but yeah i'm i'm quite i'm quite hopeful that it will happen um that's been my dream that one day somebody would pick up on it um i've always been told that i'll write another book um but i'm not sure what the content will be but they said i'm not to think too much about it because it will just happen um so yeah it possible but i think there's a book in everybody to be honest yeah i think everybody could sit down and write but um but um yeah and and to be to be as free as possible really so and to be free of this again so yeah i just want my freedom back um because i've thought so long to get it and now it's been took away from me again so yeah i just want us all to be free again yeah so it would be nice to to have our lives back because yeah possibly if we didn't we ever took this interview what a couple of years back we wouldn't be talking sort of on on the line that we would have gone on to because of the fact is that our lives wouldn't have happened or this wouldn't happen to us but yeah it's um i'm i'm hopeful that yeah that will come off and i i i like to not get too excited about it just in case it doesn't but yeah i am i'm quite secretly very excited about the prospects of this going on to yeah different different options and different avenues so um but um but life's just a little bit quieter for me i just get up every day go to work i'm a little cleaner at the moment i do what i love because i've got OCD so i love it best about the best cleaner in the whole world and um and yeah i just um i'm thankful like you every day that i get out because i'm well sort of out and i wake up and i've still got my life intact so yes um it's quite easy that yes and people find you on instagram is that the best way yeah i'm on instagram facebook and and twitter so yeah i'm out and about sit on them and um yeah and i'll answer any sort of sort of questions that anybody has regarding all different issues that have been brought up on this and in the book so and sometimes we've like my sort of mental health issues with the panic attacks and everything and and um sometimes i just like to talk to people um and because it is good to talk yeah um i find that a lot of the time when i was suffering with the panic disorder when i come out of prison i didn't talk to anybody i didn't tell anybody about it and that's when i suffered the most but now when i feel quite sort of down i'm going to talk to my mum tell her what's going on and then yeah my mood sort of lifts a little bit so um yeah it's always good to keep your friends around you and talk yes so definitely yeah well terry stay on the line because i'm going to hit the record button off i just will thank thank you personally um so so i will thank you now for the purpose of the camera terry you're absolutely lovely please don't don't go changing um i'm so glad that you've come through what you have and um you've your your your head's in the right direction for a very bright future thank you for coming on the podcast yeah thank you for having me oh no and anytime you want to come back maybe our subscribers have got some questions they want to ask we could do a live a live chat on youtube and they can put us questions in the chat that would be that's fine that would be nice so thank you again and to everybody at home massive love to you all please look after each other and we'll see you next time yeah thank you hi everyone