THE mother of a Briton jailed for 14 years with hard labour in Japan protested her son’s innocence yesterday and said that she was afraid he might die in prison.

Iris Baker, 54, spoke of her anger and grief at the conviction of her son, Nick, for drug smuggling as an international campaign was launched to free him.

Nick Baker, a 32-year-old sandwich shop manager, sobbed and shook with fear and disbelief as he was led from the dock at the Chiba court, outside Tokyo. He shivered uncontrollably and tore at his hair for the entire two-hour hearing.

He was caught in April last year at Tokyo’s Narita airport with 41,200 ecstasy pills and 900 grams of cocaine stuffed into the false bottom of a suitcase.

He maintained that the suitcase belonged to a friend, James Prunier, who fled Japan and was arrested in Belgium last month on suspicion of tricking three other people into carrying bags full of drugs.

Despite evidence in Belgium that could prove Baker’s innocence, the Japanese court authorities refused to see the file or to allow it to be presented to the court.

The case has provoked a furore in Japan at a time when there are demands for reform of the legal and penal system. Baker, from Stroud, Gloucestershire, has the backing of the local lawyers’ association and a national newspaper.

In Britain his case has been taken up by the campaign group Fair Trials Abroad, and Baroness Ludford, the Liberal Democrat MEP, who accused the Japanese authorities of “wilfully refusing” to investigate the case fairly. She met Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean, the Foreign Office Minister, yesterday to demand immediate action on the “outrage”.

The British Embassy in Tokyo has already raised its concerns with the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Justice over the treatment of Baker, who was kept in solitary confinement for ten months without access to a lawyer. The complaints were so strong that the two ministries agreed to the first three-way summit with British authorities to discuss a prisoner’s treatment.

Mrs Baker said that she was “numb” after being told of the sentence given to her son, who has spent the last year on suicide watch at Chiba prison. She said: “I’m really concerned about his mental wellbeing. He’s so fragile and I’m worried he may die.

“His treatment has been barbaric, something out of the Dark Ages. He’s been held in solitary confinement for months and can be punished even for making eye contact with a guard or combing his hair at the wrong time of day.

“He has a two-year-old son called George and hasn’t been able to see him for 14 months. It breaks Nick’s heart to think about George. He just breaks down.”

Mrs Baker, speaking at her home in Oaksey, Wiltshire, said that Mr Prunier had been her son’s trusted friend. Mr Prunier, also from Stroud, is on bail from the Belgian courts. He fled Tokyo airport after Baker’s arrest and left Japan days later without police attempting to speak to him.

Baker and Mr Prunier became friends about three years ago when they met at Brimscombe Football Club, in Stroud. They decided to travel together when Baker said that he intended to go to Japan to collect World Cup souvenirs, and Mr Prunier wanted to go to book a flat for the tournament.

Mrs Baker said that on the journey to Japan both men had had a few drinks and in some horseplay some of their clothes had been switched from one to the other’s suitcase.

At the airport there were two conveyor belts where the suitcases were delivered from the aircraft. Mr Prunier spotted Baker’s suitcase and, being nearer, said that he would take it through customs. Baker agreed and collected his friend’s suitcase.

Judge Kenji Kadoya, sentencing Baker, acknowledged Mr Prunier’s role in the case and described him as the kingpin of a sinister global drugs ring.

Japanese Foreign Ministry insiders said that the judge’s reference to Mr Prunier — the first time he had been mentioned in the court — were likely to be part of a face- saving exercise after the international scrutiny the case had attracted.

Japan’s courts have an extraordinarily high conviction rate of 99 per cent. Prosecutors are usually armed with a full confession from the accused, often achieved after a period of solitary confinement and reduced rations.

Baker’s lawyer, Shunji Miyake, said that he would appeal against the verdict. “We still believe he is innocent,” he said.

Stephen Jakobi, of Fair Trials Abroad, said that the Japanese system of justice was so backward that a defendant had about the same chance of acquittal as winning the national lottery.

He was deeply concerned about the refusal to hear defence evidence from Belgium and said: “I’ve never heard of a court deliberately excluding defence evidence before. It just doesn’t happen in civilised societies.”

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