Every morning, as she watches her drag herself out of bed and dress herself
with painstaking slowness, Nadine Angus has to stop herself from crying out:
“Buck up, Daisy! Get a move on!” She daren’t even take dawdling Daisy to the
supermarket because she will have to tear her away from the fruit and
vegetables.
For Daisy, back home in Bournemouth having spent nearly five years in Indian
prisons after being wrongly convicted of drug smuggling, the world is a
dizzying, overwhelming place. “My mum complains that I am doing everything
too slowly. But I am used to taking my time over washing and dressing to
while away the hours,” she says. “It’s hard to get back to a normal rhythm.
I feel as if I’m in a film that’s been speeded up.”
Daisy’s story, of the trial that dragged on for more than three years, serves
as the most chilling example of all backpacking tales. When Daisy left home
to travel the world, she was just 22, still living at home with her two
younger brothers, and working as a physical therapist. Now she is
approaching 27, a near-stranger who has experienced a level of physical
depredation that her mother cannot bear to imagine.
Daisy’s mother, never doubting her innocence, gave up her job as a nursery
nurse to fight for her release. The family spent more than £100,000 and had
to remortgage to pay for lawyers and fly back and forth to visit her in
prison. Her father John died of leukaemia in 2005.
“I think my prison sentence contributed to my father’s stress and illness,”
she says. “And I realised that I was the one putting lines on my mother’s
face. I saw her ageing before my eyes.” She finds her hard-won freedom, for
which her family has paid a terrible price, bewildering. Her mother will
often walk in on her and she will be sitting in silence, staring at a blank
wall. “I have to do it. It’s my way of coping, like meditation.”
Her ordeal began during a round-the-world holiday in November 2002. She had
been in India on her way to Australia to meet friends for a working holiday
when she took a fateful detour. Her parents, who had both done charity work
in India, were planning to celebrate John’s 50th birthday in Dharam-sala in
the north. Changing her itinerary to join them there, she found her onward
airline ticket to Australia was no longer valid.
She turned to a local businessman, Yoram Kadesh, a friend of one of her
girlfriends, for advice. He told her that she would need a new ticket and
that it would be cheaper to fly from Mumbai to Berlin, where he happened to
be going, to buy one. She agreed.
On the train journey back to Mumbai, her bag split. Later, meeting him in his
hotel, he offered to carry her possessions in one of his cases. As they
prepared to check in for a KLM flight to Berlin together, customs officers
found 10 kilos of cannabis in the bag that contained some of Daisy’s
clothing. Though Daisy denied ownership and all knowledge of its contents,
she was arrested. Kadesh fled the airport, but was apprehended.
Both Daisy and Kadesh were charged with drug smuggling. As foreigners, they
were both denied bail and jailed pending their trial. Beginning in April
2003, it did not conclude until June last year. To the incredulity of
Daisy’s family, she was found guilty of drug smuggling and sentenced to 10
years. Kadesh was acquitted. She could have chosen repatriation and served
her sentence in Britain, but that would have meant relinquishing the right
to appeal. “I couldn’t have lived with myself if I had done that. I would
have been stuck with the label ‘drug smuggler’ for the rest of my life.”
Friends of the family have claimed Kadesh befriended her to set her up as a
drug mule. But she trusted him and she finds his behaviour inexplicable.
Kadesh’s acquittal may now become the subject of an appeal by the public
prosecutor and his whereabouts are unknown.
For much of her time in prison, she shared a cell 80ft by 100ft with up to 100
women, many of them convicted murderers. They slept on hessian mats under
halogen lights that were never switched off. Cockroaches were commonplace,
as were maggots in her daily diet of rice and lentils. “I used to think to
myself, ‘Well, at least the maggots are protein’.” Suffering from malaria
and then suspected meningitis, she was admitted to hospital several times.
It was not until two months ago that her conviction was overturned on appeal.
When she emerged from jail, having lost 2½ stone, her mother was waiting
patiently for her in the shade of a banyan tree. “I wanted to kneel down and
kiss the ground,” she says, “but I thought my mum would think that was a bit
weird.” Instead she hugged her mother, screamed with joy, and asked for a
vanilla ice cream. The taste was heart-stopping.
Her mother took her to a friend’s borrowed flat in Mumbai where she fed her an
omelette and salad, the first fresh food she had eaten in five years. She
found some gold stilettos and, kicking off the filthy flip-flops she had
worn for so long, danced round the living room.
She wanted to tell her mother so much about her long years of suffering, but
the words wouldn’t come. “I found it difficult to remember any English,” she
says. “I had no confidence speaking because I had had so little contact with
Europeans.”
Meeting her, you realise her English is not yet fluent: her accent is more
Bollywood than Bournemouth and she struggles for the right words. “People
can’t place me because I don’t sound British any more,” she says. “I can’t
be bothered to go into detail. I just say, ‘I’ve been away for a long time’.”
To preserve her sanity, she filled her days with projects. She learnt to speak
Hindi so fluently that she could give exercise classes for fellow inmates.
She helped set up a library and taught basic English. She has 13 GCSEs,
science A-levels and a diploma in occupational therapy, so asked her mother
to send her textbooks, wanting to keep up her sciences. “My mum’s devotion
got me through. She never gave up hope. And my friends never stopped writing
to me. I have four suitcases of letters from them.”
Many of the inmates had small children with them in jail; others were
pregnant. When one young Bangladeshi woman went into labour in the cell,
Daisy delivered the baby, putting up a sheet around her to give her some
privacy. “I was with my sister when she gave birth so I wasn’t completely
unprepared,” she says.
She would now like to apply to medical school, but realises she faces many
hurdles along the way. “I don’t exactly have a very good CV. Five years in
an Indian jail doesn’t look very impressive. How do I explain that away?”
Salvation came when Heather Saville, a British businesswoman living in Mumbai,
heard about Daisy’s conviction and offered to help find a good lawyer. Daisy
was released on Easter Sunday, but was unable to get a plane home. She says
she felt abandoned by the British high commission, finding its staff
“shockingly” unhelpful. She had to stay in India a further two weeks before
its officials issued a passport.
She does not waste time cursing her luck or her gullibility. With a maturity
beyond her years, she says: “I have been pulled into many pieces. I need to
recuperate and then make up for lost time.”
Deprived of fresh air and sky for so long, she is going for regular walks
along the beach and in the New Forest. But before she can get on with her
life, she has some unattended business. “I spent so many birthdays in jail,”
she says. “I know I am going to be 27 this year but I feel as if I ought to
be 22 again. I want to go back and claim back those years.”
She is planning the twenty-something celebrations she never had. A case of
stop the world, Daisy wants to get on.
what the truth is Daisy Angus has suffered and so have her family. Imagine her dad dieing knowing she was in a prison far away. I think the way she has gone about dealing with her situation is amazing and I admire her mom very much aswell.
all the best to her for the future
David, London, England
I agree with John in Bedford. I just can't believe that a girl could be so naive - not with all the awareness raising campaigns around. I also remember seeing an article that quoted her mother speaking in quite some detail about how Daisy had been persuaded to carry the suitcase by a man who offered her money and treated her to 5* hotels. She's just lucky she didn't get caught in Thailand or Singapore. And lucky to get out of prison early while she's still in her 20's.
Caroline, London, UK
rather than be judmental, as we may never know the truth on this story , maybe a lesson can be learned from her experience. i do not condone the alledged actions of daisy, but few of us have a clean slate in life, hopefully her recollections of her time in jail and all she has learned will benefit someone and that is better than nothing whichever side of the moral fence you care to fall
mrs s. matthews nottingham
mr k matthews, nottingham, england
I'm Indian and could never eat rice & lentils for 5 years (yuck). Furthermore, I am very impressed about her story. In all seriousness this could well make a blockbuster movie.
Daisy Angus is a very brave woman.
Mohammed, London, UK
Why is it that the English assume that every one of their fellow countrymen found guilty abroad of any crime is always innocent? This jolly foreigner attitude stinks. Have we forgotten about the dozens of high profile miscarriages of justice in this country?
Whenever a drug smuggling brit gets caught in Thailand/Singapore/Malaysia etc. why do the tablids create a bandwagon to 'get them justice' or 'bring xxxxx home'? If a foreigner is caught bringing contraband into the UK, the press are up in arms, but when a middle class white person is caught smuggling the drugs out, they must be innocent.
Realise the facts: brits abroad DO commit many crimes, many of them involving drug smuggling.
suki singh, London, UK
I'm not sure that this piece tells the whole story.
As far as I recall, her father, when he was alive, actually revealed she knew the man was a drug smuggler and was suspicious of the suitcase from the start.
It was because of this the the human rights organisation Fair Trials Abroad had to stop acting on her behalf.
I know it makes me sound unsympathetic, but as the expression goes, "if you can't do the time, don't do the crime."
She was potentially a small cog in a machine that helps to destroy lives.
John, Bedford, UK
I read Daisy's story today and felt moved to contact you. I too have a daughter who will turn 27 this year, and she too has had her ups and downs, but nothing like the experience of Daisy. As a mother, I cannot imagine how terrible it must be knowing how your daughter is suffering so much, when she is innocent. If possible, please could you send a message to Daisy wishing her all the very best in her efforts to return to a normal life. I hope he strength continues, and I hope that she will find not only peace in her future, but also great happiness.
Toni Hamilton, Bideford, UK
I'm curious as to why there is no reference to the 'confession' Daisy is alleged to have made to her father a few years ago, as reported in the BBC website coverage of this case both at the time and after her acquittal.
It may be that this was either misreported or subsequently retracted, but having read that Daisy is previously said to have admitted taking money in return for carrying the case through customs, it makes it harder to believe that she is quite the innocent victim she is now being portrayed as.
Alex, London,