Thread: ANNA BARTLETT was before SAMANTHA OROBATOR

Woman in Arab drug case could face execution

by CLARE KITCHEN, Daily Mail

A British woman could be executed by firing squad after yesterday admitting she smuggled drugs into the United Arab Emirates.
Anna Bartlett told an Islamic Sharia court that she had brought cocaine and hashish into the Gulf state, where trafficking carries the death penalty.
The 22-year-old from Southendon-Sea, Essex, is one of five Britons who were arrested in October last year and accused of being part of an organised drugs ring.
Appearing in court in the northern emirate of Ras al-Khaimah, Bartlett said she had been promised money by fellow Briton Stacy Simpson if she brought the drugs in. She denied intending to sell them.
Simpson, 28, and his girlfriend, Anne Kidd, 32, both from Leeds, along with air stewardess Katherine Jenkins, 29, from Cimla, South Wales, and investment company worker Daniel Mallouf, 28, from London, all deny any involvement with drugs.
The five, arrested and held in jail since October, looked tired but otherwise healthy as they were led in in handcuffs to face the charges.
The women wore traditional long black robes and scarves covering their hair and sat separately from the men during the 30-minute hearing.
All five were held after a Lebanese man told police that Mallouf was part of a drugs ring.
He claimed that he bought his drugs from an Australian woman who in turn named Bartlett, Simpson and Kidd as smugglers.
She also claimed there were more drugs at the home of Jenkins, who has worked for the Emirates airline for six years.
Each of the defendants were tested for drugs when they were arrested. All were positive except Jenkins whose family insist that she does not know any of the others and has been wrongly accused.
Bartlett told the judge she had taken cocaine in Amsterdam a week before her arrest but said she had not had any drugs since her arrival in the UAE. She said Simpson had given her a package in Germany to carry on the flight to the Gulf.
She added: 'I brought the drugs into the country, but not for me to sell. There was cocaine and hashish, but it was already inside the packaging so I don't know what other drugs there were.
'But they were his drugs, I just brought them into the country for him.'
Asked by the judge why she had done it, Bartlett said: 'Because I was going to get paid for bringing it into the country. I was simply carrying it for someone else, but no money changed hands.'
A Foreign Office spokesman said British Embassy staff had attended the court hearing where they had been able to speak to both the prosecution lawyers and the judge.
They had arranged for a new translator after the Britons had difficulty understanding proceedings.
'Now we know exactly what they have been charged with we are seeking clarification about the likely penalties,' said the spokesman.
Although no Westerner has been sentenced to death in the UAE in the last 10 years, authorities in the country are becoming increasingly concerned about an increase in drugs offences and judges are handing out stiffer sentences.
Simple possession of drugs can attract a four-year sentence.
Bartlett's family declined to comment last night. The accused will appear in court again on March 13 when their trial will begin.

ANNA BARTLETT....any empathy for her?
i can't find her photo in the web
i saw her photo in the paper
she very pretty

Southend: Drugs girl Anna speaks of prison cell hell

Drugs smuggler Anna Bartlett has told for the first time how she risked her life by swallowing 50 packages containing cocaine, Ecstasy and hashish - all for £1,000.
The 24-year-old, from Sandringham Road, Southend, spent two-and-a-half-years in a Saudi Arabian prison for the crime. She could have faced a firing squad or died from an overdose if any one of the packages had burst in her stomach.
She said: "I knew what I was doing was wrong but all I was interested in was me, me, me and money, money, money."
When she agreed to take the drugs to Dubai she was told she would need to swallow the wraps, each more than 4cm long, over a 15-hour period, along with yogurt and muesli to prevent the packages from blocking her intestines.
However on the day of her flight, October 28 2000, the drugs were delayed and Anna only had three hours to swallow them all.
She got through customs but the problems started once she arrived and could not get the drugs out of her system and was forced to use the bath as a toilet so none of the wraps were lost.
When she took them to the man she was running the drugs for, he told her to give one package to an Australian girl. However, police were watching the Australian girl and when caught she directed the officers to Anna.
She said: "They kept going on about the death penalty. After two days they made me sign a statement that was written in Arabic. I didn't have clue what it said."
She was thrown into the isolation wing of a prison for ten days. She said: "I totally lost the plot. "My life was over, my family didn't have a clue where I was, I would never see freedom again and I was going to be shot dead for what I did.
"I lay on the floor on my filthy old blanket, sobbing and talking to the wall. It was hell on earth."
In May 2001 she was sentenced to 25 years, but on appeal in October 2001 the sentence was reduced to ten years and a £10,000 fine.
However her sentence was cut short when she was declared "medically unstable" by a judge and deported. She was reunited with her family last Monday.
She added: "I am pleased just to be alive. To be able to go shopping is fantastic and it is great to be able to eat what I want - I never want to see a bowl of rice again."

Originally Posted by tao39

Southend: Drugs girl Anna speaks of prison cell hell

Drugs smuggler Anna Bartlett has told for the first time how she risked her life by swallowing 50 packages containing cocaine, Ecstasy and hashish - all for £1,000.
The 24-year-old, from Sandringham Road, Southend, spent two-and-a-half-years in a Saudi Arabian prison for the crime. She could have faced a firing squad or died from an overdose if any one of the packages had burst in her stomach.
She said: "I knew what I was doing was wrong but all I was interested in was me, me, me and money, money, money."
When she agreed to take the drugs to Dubai she was told she would need to swallow the wraps, each more than 4cm long, over a 15-hour period, along with yogurt and muesli to prevent the packages from blocking her intestines.
However on the day of her flight, October 28 2000, the drugs were delayed and Anna only had three hours to swallow them all.
She got through customs but the problems started once she arrived and could not get the drugs out of her system and was forced to use the bath as a toilet so none of the wraps were lost.
When she took them to the man she was running the drugs for, he told her to give one package to an Australian girl. However, police were watching the Australian girl and when caught she directed the officers to Anna.
She said: "They kept going on about the death penalty. After two days they made me sign a statement that was written in Arabic. I didn't have clue what it said."
She was thrown into the isolation wing of a prison for ten days. She said: "I totally lost the plot. "My life was over, my family didn't have a clue where I was, I would never see freedom again and I was going to be shot dead for what I did.
"I lay on the floor on my filthy old blanket, sobbing and talking to the wall. It was hell on earth."
In May 2001 she was sentenced to 25 years, but on appeal in October 2001 the sentence was reduced to ten years and a £10,000 fine.
However her sentence was cut short when she was declared "medically unstable" by a judge and deported. She was reunited with her family last Monday.
She added: "I am pleased just to be alive. To be able to go shopping is fantastic and it is great to be able to eat what I want - I never want to see a bowl of rice again."

Anna died late 2003, in India and drugs were suspected as well. I personally know a few of the girls from Dubai, but there lies many a long story

Originally Posted by tao39

ANNA BARTLETT....any empathy for her?
i can't find her photo in the web
i saw her photo in the paper
she very pretty

She was very pretty Tao, sadly she has passed on now

Originally Posted by edwinclapham

Anna died late 2003, in India and drugs were suspected as well. I personally know a few of the girls from Dubai, but there lies many a long story

Are you saying that after her ordeal she went to India and died? And drugs were involved? What a thicko.

Originally Posted by HBerghoff

Originally Posted by edwinclapham

Anna died late 2003, in India and drugs were suspected as well. I personally know a few of the girls from Dubai, but there lies many a long story

Are you saying that after her ordeal she went to India and died? And drugs were involved? What a thicko.

..sad for the parents and all concerned, very tragic,a tormented soul

..any empathy for Anna?

Originally Posted by tao39

..any empathy for Anna?

Tao, I feel empathy for the family who are left wondering if only........the other one caught is as guilty as, despite being acquitted, that character leaves a trail of destruction wherever she goes.

edwinclapham ..do you know a more about this girl anna bartlett?

yes, she's dead

When are these people going to get it into their thick skulls that drug trafikking is not good?
Every year there is so many of them - like that idiot Aussie who strapped the stuff under his vest, did he think it looked like a six pack??

I also fee so sorry for their families... And for that girl to do it again in India is just selfish.

T IS TRAGIC END THIS BEAUTIFUL GIRL
Police have launched a murder inquiry after the battered body of a young Briton was found in India, four months after her release from an Arab jail for drug s
Police have launched a murder inquiry after the battered body of a young Briton was found in India, four months after her release from an Arab jail for drug smuggling.
The death of 25-year-old Anna Bartlett, whose partially clothed body was found in the Himalayan hill resort of Manali, marked the tragic end for a young woman whose life promised so much, only to be blighted by drugs.
muggling.
The death of 25-year-old Anna Bartlett, whose partially clothed body was found in the Himalayan hill resort of Manali, marked the tragic end for a young woman whose life promised so much, only to be blighted by drugs.
Once a high-achieving A-level student accepted for a degree course at university, Miss Bartlett left her home in Southend, Essex, for a gap year that turned into a five-year nightmare, half of it spent in a filthy jail after she was convicted of drug running.
The final instalment of the tragedy unfolded yesterday when police announced that her badly beaten body had been found in a drain beside the Beas River that runs through the centre of Manali. Police have launched a state-wide hunt for two Irish nationals, who allegedly were with her the previous evening.
Supt A P Singh said Miss Bartlett had "severe lacerations" to her face, apparently the result of a savage assault before her death.
He added that police were also looking for a Nepalese drug dealer known to have associated with Miss Bartlett since her arrival in Manali at the weekend.
A post mortem examination revealed traces of Ketamine, a veterinary medicine normally administered to horses but also consumed by drug users, in Miss Bartlett's blood.
Miss Bartlett, who was originally given a life sentence for smuggling cocaine into the United Arab Emirates before being pardoned in June, arrived in India two weeks ago.
On Sunday, she checked into the Negi guest house in Manali, a popular centre for backpackers and drug users.
According to police, she was last seen alive in a local bar with the Irishmen. She had been drinking heavily and smoking hashish before the three left the bar late in the evening.
The short life of Miss Bartlett, the daughter of a retired English teacher, had been plagued by drugs, mental illness and more than two and a half years in jail after she was found guilty of smuggling cocaine into the UAE in October 2000.
Prosecutors had demanded she face a firing squad but she was sentenced to a life term of 25 years in prison. That was cut to 10 years on appeal and in June she was pardoned and returned to her parents, Philip and Jenny, a library assistant, in Southend. They hoped her life might get back on course and that she would take up the offer of a place on an ecology course at Brighton University.
On her release, Miss Bartlett said: "I am deeply ashamed of what I did. I now realise that drugs kill thousands of vulnerable people across the world. I was a smuggler but, at the time, I cared only about cash not people.
"I thought drug trafficking would make me a bit of easy money. I never thought I would get caught in a million years. I did and it has cost me so much. I have wasted nearly three years in a dirty, stinking prison. I smuggled the drugs by swallowing them and could easily have died. Worst of all I have put my family through hell. They fought to get me out. Without them, I would not be here today."
But Miss Bartlett remained as restless as in her late teens and during the summer set off again on her travels. Once more, she headed for India - the place where, in 1998 at the age of 19, she had met the Yorkshireman she blamed for introducing her to life as a "drugs mule".
During her sixth-form years, she had smoked cocaine and, later, tried ecstasy and LSD. But it was only after leaving school and setting off on her "dream" break before starting university, that she encountered the world of hard drugs.
After working for a charity in Tanzania, she went to Goa and became part of the drugs culture that was to blight her. "Everyone who travels does drugs," she said. "You get to know everyone on the circuit and the most popular people are those with access to drugs." Her drug taking took a heavy toll and, when she returned home in May 2000, she suffered a nervous breakdown. That summer she attempted to commit suicide by walking in front of a car.
She disappeared from her parents' comfortable home in September after being offered the chance to earn some more "easy" money, just £1,000, by smuggling drugs into Dubai.
Last October, after swallowing about 50, three-inch long pouches of drugs, she flew from Germany to the UAE where she was later arrested. Her parents hoped that the pardon she was granted in June would mark a turning point in their daughter's life.
Yesterday Mrs Bartlett said: "I really don't want to talk to anybody at the moment.
"All we know is that she was found yesterday and that an autopsy is being carried out today. It is so awful."
Police in Manali were also detaining a local drug dealer as a witness last night after he reported seeing attempts to conceal Miss Bartlett's body.

dlaczego tak interesuje ją?

Originally Posted by tao39

T IS TRAGIC END THIS BEAUTIFUL GIRL
Police have launched a murder inquiry after the battered body of a young Briton was found in India, four months after her release from an Arab jail for drug s
Police have launched a murder inquiry after the battered body of a young Briton was found in India, four months after her release from an Arab jail for drug smuggling.
The death of 25-year-old Anna Bartlett, whose partially clothed body was found in the Himalayan hill resort of Manali, marked the tragic end for a young woman whose life promised so much, only to be blighted by drugs.
muggling.
The death of 25-year-old Anna Bartlett, whose partially clothed body was found in the Himalayan hill resort of Manali, marked the tragic end for a young woman whose life promised so much, only to be blighted by drugs.
Once a high-achieving A-level student accepted for a degree course at university, Miss Bartlett left her home in Southend, Essex, for a gap year that turned into a five-year nightmare, half of it spent in a filthy jail after she was convicted of drug running.
The final instalment of the tragedy unfolded yesterday when police announced that her badly beaten body had been found in a drain beside the Beas River that runs through the centre of Manali. Police have launched a state-wide hunt for two Irish nationals, who allegedly were with her the previous evening.
Supt A P Singh said Miss Bartlett had "severe lacerations" to her face, apparently the result of a savage assault before her death.
He added that police were also looking for a Nepalese drug dealer known to have associated with Miss Bartlett since her arrival in Manali at the weekend.
A post mortem examination revealed traces of Ketamine, a veterinary medicine normally administered to horses but also consumed by drug users, in Miss Bartlett's blood.
Miss Bartlett, who was originally given a life sentence for smuggling cocaine into the United Arab Emirates before being pardoned in June, arrived in India two weeks ago.
On Sunday, she checked into the Negi guest house in Manali, a popular centre for backpackers and drug users.
According to police, she was last seen alive in a local bar with the Irishmen. She had been drinking heavily and smoking hashish before the three left the bar late in the evening.
The short life of Miss Bartlett, the daughter of a retired English teacher, had been plagued by drugs, mental illness and more than two and a half years in jail after she was found guilty of smuggling cocaine into the UAE in October 2000.
Prosecutors had demanded she face a firing squad but she was sentenced to a life term of 25 years in prison. That was cut to 10 years on appeal and in June she was pardoned and returned to her parents, Philip and Jenny, a library assistant, in Southend. They hoped her life might get back on course and that she would take up the offer of a place on an ecology course at Brighton University.
On her release, Miss Bartlett said: "I am deeply ashamed of what I did. I now realise that drugs kill thousands of vulnerable people across the world. I was a smuggler but, at the time, I cared only about cash not people.
"I thought drug trafficking would make me a bit of easy money. I never thought I would get caught in a million years. I did and it has cost me so much. I have wasted nearly three years in a dirty, stinking prison. I smuggled the drugs by swallowing them and could easily have died. Worst of all I have put my family through hell. They fought to get me out. Without them, I would not be here today."
But Miss Bartlett remained as restless as in her late teens and during the summer set off again on her travels. Once more, she headed for India - the place where, in 1998 at the age of 19, she had met the Yorkshireman she blamed for introducing her to life as a "drugs mule".
During her sixth-form years, she had smoked cocaine and, later, tried ecstasy and LSD. But it was only after leaving school and setting off on her "dream" break before starting university, that she encountered the world of hard drugs.
After working for a charity in Tanzania, she went to Goa and became part of the drugs culture that was to blight her. "Everyone who travels does drugs," she said. "You get to know everyone on the circuit and the most popular people are those with access to drugs." Her drug taking took a heavy toll and, when she returned home in May 2000, she suffered a nervous breakdown. That summer she attempted to commit suicide by walking in front of a car.
She disappeared from her parents' comfortable home in September after being offered the chance to earn some more "easy" money, just £1,000, by smuggling drugs into Dubai.
Last October, after swallowing about 50, three-inch long pouches of drugs, she flew from Germany to the UAE where she was later arrested. Her parents hoped that the pardon she was granted in June would mark a turning point in their daughter's life.
Yesterday Mrs Bartlett said: "I really don't want to talk to anybody at the moment.
"All we know is that she was found yesterday and that an autopsy is being carried out today. It is so awful."
Police in Manali were also detaining a local drug dealer as a witness last night after he reported seeing attempts to conceal Miss Bartlett's body.

Tao, this is such a old thread, and its distressing for the parents to have this all reserected, why not let sleeping dogs lie.

NickA
jak poznales ze polski?

No, but I was just wondering what a polish guy was doing inquiring about a British girl who was found dead in India on a Thai related website?????

^ Maybe he just arrived from India.

I'm in India, and I'm Tao. He's an imposter!

Originally Posted by Tao

I'm in India, and I'm Tao. He's an imposter!

What? Why would he pose as you?

Originally Posted by tao39

Drugs smuggler Anna Bartlett has told for the first time how she risked her life by swallowing 50 packages containing cocaine, Ecstasy and hashish - all for £1,000.

What an Idiot..sorry but a grand to take drugs to the UAE..obviously a complete moron...she wasn't that young and certainly doesn't sound that nieve...

Originally Posted by edwinclapham

Anna died late 2003, in India and drugs were suspected as well.

Man, this girl really knew how to cock sh*t up...Manali...some the of the best Hash in the known world, and she's doing Ketamine...again Idiot...she may have been forced to take the Ketamine...but judging by her track record unlikely.

Originally Posted by tao39

The death of 25-year-old Anna Bartlett, whose partially clothed body was found in the Himalayan hill resort of Manali, marked the tragic end for a young woman whose life promised so much, only to be blighted by drugs.

This is truely tragic though as it gives a bad image of Manali and northern India...which I found to be bloody perfect..amazing scenery, great Hash and food...really nice people...and that seems to be the general consensus from anyone I've met....including women travelling alone over there.

Originally Posted by tao39

During her sixth-form years, she had smoked cocaine and, later, tried ecstasy and LSD.

But it was only after leaving school and setting off on her "dream" break before starting university, that she encountered the world of hard drugs.

So smoking Coke isn't classed as a hard drug anymore...are we not sure that the article is incorrect from a bleeding heart and that she loved the CRACK!!!!!!

Originally Posted by tao39

"You get to know everyone on the circuit and the most popular people are those with access to drugs."

Cobblers, this one really. You can travel around as much as you like in the world and people may offer you drugs, but you can say NO, and that is generally it...I've never had drugs pushed on me..no means no..pretty much...Jehovahs witness's on the other hand and window and vacumm sales people...well you just can't get rid of those feckers..however hard you try...

Originally Posted by tao39

Her drug taking took a heavy toll and, when she returned home in May 2000, she suffered a nervous breakdown. That summer she attempted to commit suicide by walking in front of a car.

Poor car driver...maybe she should've tried an overdose instead of nearly ruining someone elses life...she seemed to have a pretty good knowledge of drugs...get some smack from a drugy mate and shoot up!!! so much nicer that causing some innocent driver a life of terrible memories.

Selfish tart....didn't someone just feel the world get lighter we lost a moron!!! Bill Hicks.

THIS IS TRAGIC STORY OF ANNA BARTLETT /with her own words/:

EXCLUSIVE: DRUGS GIRL WHO RISKED HER LIFE FOR �1,000

By Maggie O'Riordan And Steve Gravenor


ONE after the other, Anna Bartlett gulped down the lipstick-sized packages. Retching as she swallowed, the 21-year old British student swigged orange juice to ease the pain of her burning throat.

Sitting in a tiny room in Munich, she spent three hours forcing down 50 cellophane wrapped parcels. Each one contained a combination of cocaine, ecstacy and hashish with a street value of over �100,000.

This is a story that will send shivers down every parent's spine. Anna was an intelligent girl lured into trafficking drugs while she was on a gap year. For just �1,000 Anna boarded a flight to Dubai, her stomach swollen with the drugs. She was later arrested and jailed. The threat of death by firing squad hung over her for two months before she heard her final sentence- 25 years in a squalid Arabian prison.

Earlier this week the teacher's daughter from Essex was suddenly freed after two-and-a-half years in jail. Anna, now 24, last night revealed her shame and how she considered suicide as she faced life in prison.

She said: "I knew what I was doing was wrong but all I was interested in was me, me, me and money, money, money. What I did was selfish and evil. When I was first thrown in jail I went completely mad. I was banging my head off the walls, hearing voices and talking to myself.

"Every day in prison was just like the last. The depression was so ingrained it felt normal. I just wanted to kill myself."

Anna's story offers a terrifying insight into the international drugs trade and the ease with which dealers can persuade vulnerable young travellers to risk their lives for money.

Like many youngsters Anna wanted to travel the world before settling down to study at university.

Looking for a way to fund her trip in September 2000, she agreed to carry 500g of cocaine, worth around �75,000, 1,000 ecstacy pills valued at �30,000 and 500g of hashish on a five-hour flight from Germany to Dubai - where drugs sell for far more than they do on British streets.

Anna was brought up in a loving home in Southend, Essex, by her father Phil, a retired teacher, and her mother Penny a library assistant,

She was a high-achieving schoolgirl by day, but at night she and her friends would smoke cannabis. Eventually she tried LSD and ecstacy.

But it was not until she set off on a dream trip to India and Africa following her A-levels that she was exposed to the hard-core drug culture.

She had deferred her place at Brighton University and was determined to have some fun.

Anna says: "Everyone who travels does drugs. You get to know everyone on the circuit and the most popular people are those with access to drugs."

It was in Goa in 1998 that she first met a charismatic charmer called Stacy who later persuaded her to become a drug runner.

Anna returned home and in May 2000 suffered a breakdown she blames on her drug use. She says it was after this Stacy called and offered her a "job".

"I knew he meant carrying drugs when he phoned me. But I didn't care about my health or the consequences. I wanted money.

"He told me to meet him in Munich via Amsterdam. He only offered me �1,000 which is such a small sum. But to me it seemed like a fortune." Anna took off without telling her parents. She emailed her mother from Amsterdam to say she was safe but that was all. "Stacy made it sound so simple," says Anna. "He told me the drugs would be wrapped 10 times in clingfilm and burned closed at either end to stop them bursting.

"He said I needed to swallow them over a 15-hour period - to take a batch, eat some yoghurt and muesli to line my stomach and then take another batch. That way I would prevent blockages in my guts."

But on October 28 - the day of her flight to Dubai - the drugs were not ready in time. Anna was forced to take all of them within a three-hour period.

She adds: "I must have swallowed around 50 lipstick-sized packages. I was angry because I knew I was taking them too fast. I was so stressed I was sweating. I was gulping down gallons of orange juice. I felt so full I thought I was going to burst.

"The dealer brought the packages into a bedroom and lined them up on a dressing table. The tablets were wrapped in plastic followed by layers of film again. I gagged as I swallowed them, partly from the pain and the stress of the risk I was taking."

Anna had been assured that the packages would not burst in her stomach - but if even one or two had, she would have died from an overdose.

She knew that the punishment for smuggling to Dubai was life imprisonment. But she had no idea that she could face death by firing squad. On the flight to Dubai Anna and Stacy sat separately. Anna even managed to eat the in-flight meals.

"I was dressed like a businesswoman in a smart green suit and heels. I wasn't nervous about going through customs. How would they know what was inside my body? I concentrated on acting bored and weary."

Once in Dubai, they booked into a hotel - and Anna's nightmare began. For the first day of her trip she was constipated and unable to expel the drugs from her body. She was lying on the bed, sweating and in agony.

STACY became angry and refused to let her out of his sight, says Anna. He told her to go to the toilet in the bath so none of the drugs would be lost.

"I was in such pain," says Anna. "I was drinking olive oil and taking laxatives but nothing worked at first."

Stacy accompanied Anna to a shopping mall the following day and suddenly she found herself desperate for the loo. She stuffed a public toilet with paper and relieved herself. Humiliatingly, she then had to search through her own excrement to retrieve the packages.

"It was really degrading. I washed the packages, stuffed them in my handbag and went back to the hotel. Stacy had given me some antiseptic soap to wash them with. I peeled off some of the cling film, washed them and put them in a first-aid box.

"I went to his room and he was with an Australian girl, who I'd never met. He told me to give her a package of cocaine, which I did. Then he told me to take the drugs back to my room. Stupidly, I did because I trusted him."

But police were watching the Australian girl and picked her up after she left the hotel. She then pointed out where Stacy and Anna were staying.

"They searched the room and when they found the drugs in a drawer they arrested me.

"They stuck me in a van and drove 80km from Dubai to the neighbouring Emirate of Ras al-Khaimah which was where the investigation into the drugs ring began.

"I remember staring out of the windows, knowing it was going to be a long time before I'd see the outside world again."

Anna was questioned at the police station for two days. "They kept going on about the death penalty. I told them I knew nothing about the others but admitted what I had done. After two days they made me sign a statement that was written in Arabic. I didn't have a clue what it said. I waited two weeks before seeing anyone from the British Embassy."

Anna was then put in the isolation wing of Ras al-Khaimah prison for 10 days.

"I totally lost the plot. My life was over, my family didn't have a clue where I was. I would never see freedom again and I was going to be shot dead for what I did. I lay on the floor on my filthy old blanket, sobbing and talking to the wall. It was hell on Earth."

It was not until nearly two weeks later that Anna was allowed to phone home. When she did she got her parents' answer machine.

Her mother eventually helped find her a lawyer and Anna was kept in jail on remand until she finally sentenced to 25 years in May 2001. Stacy denied Anna's allegations and was found guilty of possession. He has since appealed.

Anna trembles as recalls her prison nightmare. "I was never alone for one second except for four days I spent in isolation. We could come and go from our cell into a tiny concrete courtyard all day. I would spend hours exercising. I would either run on the spot, practise yoga or do what I remembered of step aerobics on a concrete step.

"Prisoners had to queue for their food. We had our own tin plates and cups which we had to wash ourselves. Huge pots of rice and meat would be dumped on a step in the yard. We would serve ourselves and eat on the floor. There were no tables or chairs in the entire prison. We were not allowed a pen and paper, and books were rare. Our families brought them in for us. I read Bridget Jones's' Diary over and over. It was nice to have something which made me laugh.

"For most of my sentence I slept on the floor and used my clothes as a pillow. "Mothers of illegitimate children would be slung in jail for life with their babies. I felt so sorry for the babies. No baby products were allowed, nor were toys. The babies had to sleep on the floor with their mums. It was appalling.

"There were four hole-in-the-floor toilets and two showers between 70 to 200 women.

"The ceiling was made of barbed wire and rats would scuttle around on it all day and night. Our cells were crawling with cockroaches. Every morning I would shake my blanket and loads of them would scuttle out."

IN October 2001 her appeal was heard and her sentence was reduced to 10 years and a �10,000 fine. "From that moment on I just focused on the day I would get out and be able to walk through the countryside," says Anna

Meanwhile, prison life continued. "The rules were really strict and curfew was from 10pm until 5am. During that time we were not allowed to use the loo so some women would urinate and excrete on the floor. The next morning we would clean it up and yet another dreadful day would begin.

"My health was not good and on two occasions I was given electro-convulsive treatment to stabilise me. Once I was chained to my bed for two days and made to wear adult nappies because they wouldn't allow me to go to the loo. "

Anna's parents and aunt visited her in jail. Her mother worked tirelessly, negotiating with the British Embassy and United Arab Emirates ruling family to get her daughter freed. It was not until Anna's grandmother died last November that she inherited enough money to pay the �10,000 fine.

Then last week the breakthrough came.

Anna says: "The Embassy told me that the Sheikh of the UAE had shown mercy and pardoned me. I jumped up and down with excitement asking if they were sure. Back at the prison all the girls hugged me. I am so grateful to have been given my freedom back."

Anna arrived back in Britain on Monday - into the welcoming arms of her mother.

Penny says: "The last few years have been a nightmare. We have been so worried about her and spent a fortune in legal fees to get her out. It was all worth it. I just hope she never does anything so stupid again."

Anna can barely contain her excitement at being back in the outside world.

She adds: "I am pleased just to be alive, to look at fields and trees and animals.

"To be able to go shopping is fantastic and it's great to be able to eat what I want - I never want to see a bowl of rice again.

Anna is keen to raise money via a charity for other women in her position. "I met a woman who could have gone home if she had �30,000 to pay her fine.

"I can't wait to get on a bus, and go for long walks in the country." She also intends to start her university course at last.

Anna says: "Drugs very nearly ruined my life. I thought it would be easy money. I never in a million years thought I'd get caught.

"But, worst of all, I put my family through hell. I will spend years trying to make this up to them."

UNFORTUNATELLY, ANNA BARTLETT DIED 3 MONTHS AFTER THIS TRAGIC STORY....
...any empathy for beautiful Anna?

All my empathy to Anna. Once you start on drugs,very hard to get off them. Moral is do not start

Originally Posted by crippen

All my empathy to Anna. Once you start on drugs,very hard to get off them. Moral is do not start

Yes crippen exactly, some people have addictive personalities, doesnt matter whether you come from good or bad backgrounds it can happen to many. my empathy lies with Anna's parents who are
good people and have to live with this for the rest of their days RIP Anna