Women and the lure of the drugs smuggler

Two teenagers arrested in Italy carrying pounds 600,000 worth of heroin are the latest in a long line-up of young British women accused of drugs smuggling. Some are guilty; many are simply duped. Jojo Moyes meets one such woman whose life was wrecked by a fateful journey

Lisa Roberts and her mother don't like to watch the news at the moment. Every reference to the two teenage girls arrested in Italy for drug smuggling acts as a painful reminder of the four months Lisa spent in a French prison after her boyfriend's father used her as an unwitting mule.

Not that Lisa needs a reminder; last Friday she heard that the French courts had convicted her in her absence, a judgment that in effect ends her law studies and ensures that she cannot set foot outside Britain for the next 10 years.

Like many drugs "mules", Lisa is young, pretty, perhaps a little naive. Unlike many, she was not desperate to leave the folds of her close-knit family for new experiences. In January 1994, aged 17, she was hesitant when her boyfriend of a month invited her to accompany him and his father on a paid holiday to Spain. "I didn't want to go because I wasn't very sure of him. But my mum talked me into going because she couldn't afford to take me on holiday and she thought it would be nice for me."

She and Steven, her best friend's cousin, flew to Malaga. His father was very nice and took them out to pubs and restaurants. The only thing she found strange was that they didn't stay in a proper hotel. "It was more like rooms in a house really," she says. "I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't a pool."

For that reason, when Steven's father suggested four days into the holiday that they spend the remaining days driving through France, she was enthusiastic. It would be a sightseeing trip, he indicated. They would stop off at lots of places.

In the event the car didn't stop at all. They spent a day and a night driving through Spain to France, Lisa sleeping as they travelled. She didn't complain; Steven's father was paying, after all.

When on 31 January they were called in for a routine check at a motorway toll booth at St Omer in northern France, she was not surprised. It was when customs officials began rigorously searching their car and bags that she realised something was wrong.

She was separated from Steven and his father and taken by car to a customs depot and questioned. Hours passed. "They asked me my personal details then one of the customs men brought in some drugs and said: "This is yours". I was shocked. I said: "That isn't mine". Then I realised what was happening." Hidden behind the door panel of Steven's father's car, customs officers had discovered 20kg of cannabis.

She was transferred to a police station and questioned for four days. "They told me that if I told the truth I could go home. Every day they made me sign a new form. I signed them all. I would have signed anything." Fear left her unable to eat or sleep. She was not allowed to telephone her mother. Unable to take in what was happening, she says, she felt confused and completely alone.

Her mother Pam cries when she talks about it. A divorced nursery nurse, with four other children, she thought Lisa had stopped her daily phone calls home due to lack of holiday money. Then she received a call from the Foreign Office which told her that Lisa was "involved in drugs and in prison", and that there would be no more information until after the weekend. "The only thing that kept me going was the thought that I would get my passport and go and bring her home," she says. "How naive can you get?"

On Saturday, nine days after her holiday had begun, Lisa was brought to court, charged with smuggling drugs and remanded to a women's prison at Lille. A representative of the British consulate arrived to oversee her transfer. "I did tell her I hadn't done anything ... but I guess they all say that, don't they?" Lisa says, with some bitterness.

Lisa's voice falters when she describes her time in prison. She cannot remember most of it, she says. Her lawyer says she is one of the most traumatised cases he has seen.

She says it got better when she was allowed to share a cell with two British women (both of whom were on remand on drugs charges). But despite her innocence, she had no faith that her case would be sorted out. The letters she and her mother sent each other daily were kept by the magistrate, who also refused Pam permission to visit. "Lisa thought I'd given up on her because it was drugs," she says.

Aided by a lawyer, Lisa eventually applied to be released on bail. At 7pm on 11 April she was released. With no way of getting home, a social worker had to lend her money to get to Calais, where she was met by her mother. "She looked dreadful," Pam says. "She's very slim anyway, only around seven stone. But she looked anorexic."

Lisa, her mother admits, has changed. She has developed a deep mistrust of people - even her own family - and "didn't like people around her". She had trouble sleeping and couldn't bear closed doors. Lisa's youngest sister, 14, now panics at the thought of any of her family making a trip. "She thinks they're not going to come back again," says Pam.

In an effort to regain control of her life, Lisa decided to pursue a career in law. Then two weeks ago she received a letter informing her that she had to return to France for the trial. "I didn't go back because it was obvious that I would get a 'guilty' verdict," she says. She doesn't mention the obvious, her fear that she would be sent to prison.

Last Friday, Lisa heard that, in her absence, the French courts had convicted her of smuggling drugs and had sentenced her to three years in prison. She was initially terrified, believing, incorrectly, that she would be forced back to Lille. However, the French authorities rarely extradite in such cases. When that fear subsided, she found that she would not be allowed to study law, or leave Britain, and she began to feel bitter.

"I tried to make a fresh start and now two years later this thing has come back to haunt me," she says. While those who know her believe in her innocence, many others don't. To them she is just another silly girl trying to make a fast buck by smuggling drugs. The verdict will do nothing to help. "Everybody says they're innocent, and I can't prove that I didn't know that drugs were in the car," she says.

According to lawyer Stephen Jakobi, who founded the organisation Fair Trials Abroad, Lisa's case, while horrifying, is far from unique. Young women, he says, make increasingly popular drugs mules. In traditionally "macho" countries, women arouse less suspicion than men. They are either, as in Lisa's case, aids to legitimacy (who would suspect a family on holiday?) or, as in the case of Patricia Cahill and Karyn Smith, the two young women jailed in Thailand six years ago, whose case he also championed, decoys; their sex, extreme youth, and attractiveness causing enough of a stir on arrest to allow the real couriers to pass quietly through.

And these cases, he says, have a relentless pattern. "The boyfriend, or in this case the father, tells their friend to bring someone else along on a trip. The 'guest' is usually not terribly wealthy and very glad of the chance of a holiday." Often, he says, the unwitting mules are given expensive luggage as a gift - with drugs contained in the lining.

He currently has 80 such cases on his books. All the women are there through carrying drugs. He is concerned that girls are still falling into the same trap. "Karyn and Patricia, Patricia Hussein, Lisa Marie Smith, Samantha Slater...": he reels off a roll call of recent cases. The latest, Melanie Jackman, 18, and Marianne Platt, 16, he says, fit the bill to a T. Sandra Gregory, recently sentenced to 25 years in Bangkok, doesn't. "If the drugs are in a suppository you can't exactly say you've been duped, can you?"

As the Asian routes become less popular with smugglers, a new one is emerging in Brazil, where, he says, there are already a dozen young female mules awaiting trial, many British. The organisation Prisoners Abroad also reports a surge of "female mule" arrests in Italy. "It's the same story. They always say the man seemed so nice, that they had no idea. The parents say 'not my daughter - she doesn't even smoke'," Mr Jakobi says. "But Lisa's case is frightening. It's one of the few cases where there is no guilt whatsoever."

Back in Hertfordshire, Lisa is considering an appeal. She and her mother do not like to think about Jackman and Platt in Italy. "It brings it all back," says Pam. "I'm in tears and can't cope."

Lisa is forgiving of Steven, who returned on bail a month after her. She accepts that he too was duped, although his father, she says, "gave him some sob story in prison". They have since discovered that Steven's father attempted a similar run with two children prior to the holiday.

Pam still, she says, struggles with her own feelings of guilt. "I made her go. We didn't have much money so I thought it would be a nice holiday for her. But I'll fight to clear her name, if it takes me the rest of my life." Mention Steven's father and her otherwise tremulous voice takes on a rare edge of steel. "I could kill him for what he's done to us," she says.

All names connected to Lisa's case have been changed at her request.

DRUGS CHARGES: THE BRITISH CONNECTION

Melanie Jackman, 18, and Marianne Platt, 16, face up to 10 years in prison after they were discovered in Italy earlier this month carrying 10lbs of heroin worth pounds 600,000. Although the drug was found in their suitcases at Rome airport they were allowed to travel to a rendezvous with a Nigerian couple near Naples, where all four were arrested. Italian Customs believe they were recruited by Nigerian drug barons in a Brighton nightclub to act as mules.

Lisa Marie Smith, 20, held in Thailand for four months on drug trafficking charges, was released from Lard Yao, the "Bangkok Hilton" prison last week, after her wealthy father struck a mysterious bail deal. She was arrested in February and accused of smuggling 4kg of opium and 500 amphetamine tablets through Bangkok airport in her bag. After her arrest, Smith claimed she had been conned by a Pakistani called Hassan. She said he gave her nearly pounds 700 when she ran out of money and bought her an air ticket to Japan and a new travel bag.

British teacher Sandra Gregory is serving 25 years in Bangkok for heroin trafficking. The 32-year-old, from Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire, maintained she was persuaded by her fellow Briton Robert Lock to become a mule on the heroin trail. Gregory told the Thai court she was paid pounds 750 to carry 89 grammes of heroin to Tokyo for him. Co-defendant Lock was controversially cleared. Earlier this month her sentence was reduced by three years and two months under the Thai king's golden jubilee amnesty.

Patricia Cahill and Karyn Smith were 16 and 18 when they were arrested at Bangkok airport and convicted of trying to smuggle pounds 4m worth of heroin. Smith, from Solihull, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years' jail in December 1990. Cahill, from Birmingham has always maintained she was duped. She was sentenced to 18 years and nine months. They were released after serving three years, following a royal pardon. They had been offered a free trip to Thailand by a "glamorous businessman" who drove a pink Porsche, who Cahill met in a nightclub. The man organised their passports and air tickets, but then dropped out at the last minute. Smith married last year and had a baby. Cahill, who has changed her name, now works for a haulage company.

Samantha Slater, a 25-year-old model from Birmingham, is currently serving 10 years' "rigorous imprisonment" in Kerala, India. She was sentenced after being caught in possession of one ounce of cannabis, which she maintains was planted on her. Her supporters say her health has deteriorated rapidly since she was convicted in July last year. She is said to be suffering from malnutrition, dysentery and has lost toenails from a foot infection. She has been told that there are no further grounds for appeal.

Sharon Smith, a 20-year-old from Islington, was arrested boarding a plane in Rio last April with three kilos of cocaine concealed in the lining of a suitcase. She is now serving eight years. She claims her trip was paid for by a man she met in a London nightclub. After showering her with gifts, the man offered her an all-expenses paid holiday in Brazil. As they were boarding the return flight to London, he abandoned her at check- in and got on another flight to Holland. Sharon Smith was arrested on the plane after a baggage X-ray revealed the cocaine in the lining.