THAI ONE ON

In all the emotion, bordering on hysteria, in the case of Melbourne Mum Annice Smoel, the Phuket bar and the $60 bar mat, just consider an alternative scenario. Imagine this: A bunch of Thai women on holiday in Melbourne get drunk in a bar and steal something as a souvenir. Police step in. The  accused tourist does a runner. She gets arrested and her friends turn up at the Police station to remonstrate.

They are not impressed that the Melbourne Police don’t speak their language. The woman is jailed. Eventually bailed and an international incident ensues .

Anyway, enough of the scenario. Let’s go back to the real situation. And what has been admitted so far. On 3AW Breakfast, in a sympathetic interview, Annice Smoel admitted she knew something had been put in her bag. She said it felt quite heavy and I ‘had a quick look inside and realised there was something in there.’ When Police approached her and asked her to open it she flick passed it like a hot potato back to her friends. They say it was a ‘silly joke’ that ‘turned into something very serious.’

I’m sure there was a language problem and I suspect tempers flared. In their own statutory declaration her friends swore, and I quote, ‘we were all out drinking and became intoxicated’.

 Mrs. Smoel’s husband – now in Thailand -- says, that at the Police station, the Australian women were not rude. Although there are reports the local Police Chief was abused by them. Once again…a bunch of women, angry, intoxicated, after midnight,  in a foreign land…

Don’t get me wrong here. The Thai legal system sounds brutal. Being kept in an unsanitary cell with a concrete floor and lousy food would be a nightmare. The punishment, if she is found guilty, is absurd.

But Annice Smoel is now out on bail. She does face criminal charges. Despite the morning hysteria here on 3AW what is the Australian Government expected to do?

She is safe. She is in on bail and has to report fortnightly to authorities. They have confiscated her passport because she would do a runner –again.

Go back to my reverse scenario. If the Thailand Foreign Affairs Minister tried to influence a court process here in Melbourne the protest voices of  AW’s Stevenson and Mitchell would be the loudest.

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2009