Passport To Hell: How I Survived Sadistic Prison Guards and Hardened Criminals in Spain's Toughest Prisons

by Terry Daniels

  By this stage I was used to having what little hope I had left dashed, so it came as no surprise when my appeal failed. This time I didn't even feel upset; I just thought, 'Oh well, it was to be expected.' I was allowed to start a second appeal so I was still free for the time being, which meant that my perfect flat and job and not so perfect relationship could continue for a little bit longer.

  As per the first appeal, I had no idea how long the second one was going to take or what it would entail. Once again, it was to be done in my absence, which I found a bit disconcerting because there would be no way of knowing how well my solicitor was fighting my corner. I hoped that the process would take a while so that I could put off going to prison for as long as possible.

  The weeks went by and I eventually managed to put my case to the back of my mind. There was no point spending every waking moment thinking about it, so I tried to act as if it had gone away. The court kept me in the dark for what seemed like an eternity. The optimist in me thought, 'Maybe they've forgotten about me', but the realist knew that ten-year prison sentences don't just disappear into thin air. As more and more time elapsed, the optimist became louder and the realist grew quieter. Before long, the one remaining voice was telling me that the Spanish authorities had probably lost me in the system. They seemed so incompetent that it was perfectly plausible. Perhaps my luck had finally changed. It was about time something went my way for once.

  My mum was convinced that the government had washed their hands of my case. Her logic was that they wouldn't have left me in the free world for so long without any restrictions if they truly believed that I was guilty.

  'You should just apply for a passport,' she told me. 'If it comes through then they surely can't want you to stay there.'

  'What have I got to lose?' I shrugged. 'I might as well give it a go.'

  Whilst I was waiting to see whether or not my application was successful, Mum received a letter from our local MP John Bercow. She had been corresponding with him about the case and he had been giving her advice and support. Apparently he had got a letter from the Spanish ambassador saying that I was 'released on 17 June 1997 without further admission'. This could be taken in one of two ways: it either meant I hadn't returned to prison yet or that they had decided not to send me back at all.

  'If her passport comes through then you could maybe try and see if she can come home,' John told my hopeful mother later that day on the phone. 'It's a little bit ambiguous but it seems as if the ambassador's saying that they've let her off the hook.'

  Mum was absolutely ecstatic but I remained a little sceptical. The wording was so vague that it could have meant anything. They could still decline my application and tell me that the case was ongoing. I was just going to have to sit tight and see how it all panned out.

  Sure enough, a couple of days later, Mum rang up to tell me that my passport had arrived. I had ordered it to my address back home and it had been delivered there without any problems. This time I was convinced that my ordeal was over. I knew that my case was at risk of being re-opened if I stayed in Tenerife but still felt gutted that I had to leave the island. I had finally got some stability in my life and was sad that I had to abandon it. My friends and family seemed to think that I should get the hell out of the country whilst I had the chance. Jamie kept going on and on about how I should come and live with him in Northern Ireland. Everybody was oblivious to my feelings and expected me to be as overjoyed as they were.

  Mr Fitzgerald was particularly pleased when I told him the news. I wasn't planning on speaking to him again but one of my friends invited me to a birthday celebration at his bar and seeing him made me realise what a good mate I had lost.

  'Look this is stupid,' I told him as the rest of the group tucked into their birthday meal. 'I know you only had my best interests at heart. I'm going to be leaving the island pretty soon so we might as well make up.'

  'You know you would have never won your case, don't you?' he asked me. 'Your appeal would have failed and you would have had to do ten years. You've made the right decision Terry, and I'm glad we're friends again.'

  'Keep it between me and you that I'm going,' I told him. 'I don't want it spreading round the place just in case the cops get wind of it and try to throw a spanner in the works.'

  'You can count on me,' Mr Fitzgerald assured me. 'I wouldn't want to mess things up for you.'

  I felt a lot better now that we were mates again. Looking back, I think the fact that he was so intent on forcing me to go home showed how much he cared about me. He was a kind, warm-hearted person and I couldn't have asked for a better friend to confide in.

  Mum and I came to the decision that the easiest way for me to get back to England would be to get a train from mainland Spain to London. I had decided against flying because I didn't know if it was safe after my haemorrhage and didn't fancy having another aneurysm part way through the trip. The only piece of advice that I had been given at the hospital was 'don't travel anywhere by plane' and although they didn't specify how long this applied for, I felt it would be foolish to risk disobeying them. This meant that the journey would be a lot more nerve wracking because it would take longer to arrive safely on British soil. I was going to have to travel overnight and endure a full twenty-four hours of bracing myself in case the Guardia Civil got onto me.

  The night before my flight to the mainland was spent absolutely bricking it. Even though I knew I had a legitimate passport, I still had a funny feeling that I was going to be arrested. If I got caught at customs, they might charge me with being a fugitive and add a couple of years onto my sentence. My voyage home could either end in triumph or tragedy. There was no way of knowing which one it would be until it was too late.

  Mum was planning on flying over to Tenerife and getting the plane across to Spain with me. That would be the easy part of the journey because I wouldn't need a passport. After that I was going to find out once and for all if I could leave the country without my name being flagged up as awaiting jail. There were two possible outcomes to the trip: freedom or immediate imprisonment. Option number two would at least get it over with. If I was going to be locked up then I figured they might as well just do it.

  Chapter 9

  TERRY THE FUGITIVE

  'Are you all set for your great escape then?' Mr Fitzgerald asked me the following morning as I exhaustedly plonked myself down in the passenger seat of his car.

  It was nice of him to offer to take me to the airport but his kindness made me feel sad because I knew that I was probably never going to see him again after he had dropped me off. The only circumstances in which I would be likely to return to Tenerife were if I was dragged back kicking and screaming to face my punishment. My dream of living in a tropical paradise had amounted to nothing. Not only was I heading home with my tail between my legs, but it was also now impossible for me to ever give the island another go. I felt like a complete and utter failure.

  'Yeah I guess so,' I told him. 'I owe you one for the lift.'

  Mr Fitzgerald was the only person I had told that I was leaving. Nobody else could be trusted to keep their mouth shut. If the Guardia Civil had got wind of my plan they might have taken steps to keep me in the country. They could have even reminded the court that I still needed sending down and made sure I was jailed straightaway.

  The journey to the airport was both heartbreaking and terrifying. I didn't know which emotion was worse: the sadness that I felt at having to leave behind the life that I had worked so hard to create or the mind-numbing fear of being busted.

  'You take care of yourself,' Mr Fitzgerald told me as we pulled up at the airport entrance. 'If you ever do come back, you're more than welcome at the bar.'

  I thanked him for his help and heaved my heavy suitcases out of the door and onto the scorching hot tarmac. It was time to put on my poker face. If I looked anxious and upset then people would be more likely to twig that something was up. I was going to have to act as if I was just your average British ci
tizen coming back from a holiday.

  Mum was pleased to see me but nervous in case our journey ended in disaster. She gave me a quick hug then ushered me over to our terminal. At least I would be able to relax during the flight to Spain. It was only when I crossed the border on the train that I needed to worry. We had to change at Paris, which added an extra leg to the trip. I couldn't wait until it was all over.

  The flight to Madrid-Barajas Airport took no time at all. Before we knew it, we were at the train station, waiting impatiently to board our carriage.

  'Excusez-moi ladies, I need to take your passports from you before you get on. I'll return them once you reach your final destination,' a French ticket collector instructed us as we made our way towards the edge of the platform.

  I didn't understand why he couldn't give them back to us straightaway. This was going to add a whole new level of tension to our voyage. It meant that rather than being able to relax once we had been given the all clear, we would be on pins for the entire journey, wondering whether or not I was going to be flagged up as a fugitive.

  We were forced to share a carriage with two French girls, which was a pain because it meant that we were unable to comfort one another for fear of them overhearing us. As the train pulled out of the station, all of the air felt as if it had been sucked out of my lungs and my heart pounded away like an Indian war drum. Was the train going to stop part way through the trip so that the police could come aboard and arrest me? The more I thought about it, the more paranoid I became, until I started seeing Guardia Civil officers hiding behind every tree we passed. Mum had brought a load of snacks to eat but I felt physically sick and couldn't manage anything. It was going to be a very long journey.

  Luckily our fears turned out to be completely unfounded; we were able to travel all the way to London without any trouble whatsoever. The ticket collector handed back our passports as the train came into Waterloo and I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Then a customs officer beckoned us towards him the minute we left the carriage.

  'This is it,' I thought to myself. 'We've managed to make it all the way to England only to be busted at the last minute.'

  My palms were sweaty and all of the spit in my mouth had suddenly dried up. Attempting to act casual was going to take every ounce of my energy. I prayed to God that it was just a routine check but knew deep down that we had probably been rumbled.

  'Is there a problem?' I asked the officer, knowing full well that there was.

  'No, no problem,' he lied through his teeth. 'I just need to check what's in your bags.'

  This was when it all clicked into place. I was carrying the same hard-shelled Benetton suitcase that I had seen being smashed apart by customs officers on countless documentaries about smugglers. These bags were notorious for being used to conceal drugs. The officer hadn't got a clue about my conviction on the island. He was just convinced that Mum and I had something illegal stashed away in our cases.

  'Go ahead and check,' I told him, wondering what it was about me that gave off such a criminal vibe. This time there would be no mountains of cocaine for him to find though, just the mountains of personal belongings I had amassed in Tenerife. I had nothing whatsoever to hide, so the fact that he had singled us out was more of an irritation than anything.

  Once the officer had finally finished going through our things, he eyed us both suspiciously and then put everything back into the cases.

  'What's the purpose of your trip?'

  'We've been travelling round Europe,' Mum told him. 'We were planning on doing a couple more countries but my dad's been taken ill so we had to come back in a hurry.'

  'OK you're going to have to follow me,' he said. 'I'm not one hundred per cent convinced by your story, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to get a female officer to carry out a strip-search.'

  By this stage, having my dignity violated was something that I had become depressingly familiar with, but I was angry that my mum would have to go through it. She had never broken a law in her life so what right did this jumped-up idiot have to treat her like a criminal? I felt like telling him where to go but somehow managed to keep calm.

  Even after they had poked and prodded us all over our bodies, the customs officers still seemed convinced that we had something to hide.

  'I think we need to do a couple more checks here, just to be on the safe side,' the head honcho told me. 'Can you please show me your passports so that I can make sure that they're valid?'

  Now I had good reason to be concerned. I did as he commanded and braced myself ready for a pair of handcuffs to snap shut around my wrists.

  'OK that one seems to be in order. Now what about the other one?'

  I felt like jumping up and punching the air with joy. This meant that my passage to England was one hundred per cent legit. Surely if it was illegal for me to leave Spain then there would have been a record of it on the system and customs would have got onto it. It looked as if my case really had disappeared into thin air. The officer scrutinised Mum's passport for at least a good five minutes before finally passing it back to her.

  'Sorry for the inconvenience,' he conceded. 'We need to check these things through thoroughly; it's nothing personal. You can leave the station now.'

  Mum looked at me and I looked back at Mum. We had done it; I could finally relax.

  'Let's get the hell out of here before he changes his mind,' she told me.

  My sister was waiting outside the station to pick us up. She had been going out of her mind with worry because we were so late.

  'What on earth took you so long?' she shouted, tears welling up in her eyes.

  'It's a long story,' I told her. 'Now put your foot down and drive because I really don't want to stick around much longer.'

  We headed off back to Wingrave at a rapid rate of knots. As we approached the lush, green fields that surround the village, I thanked my lucky stars that I had finally managed to make it home. The Guardia Civil couldn't touch me now that I was no longer on Spanish soil. The British police could arrest me and send me back to Spain but it was highly doubtful that they would. It looked as if everybody had forgotten about Terry the international cocaine trafficker and I had now reverted back to being Terry the average citizen.

  The car pulled up into our drive and I thought, 'This is it then. No more island life for me.' It was a cold, overcast day that couldn't have been in starker contrast to the constant scorching heat of Tenerife. I was relieved that I had managed to avoid a decade in the slammer, but gutted to be back in rainy old England.

  My first few days at home were spent grieving for the life of sun, sea and sangria that I had left behind. Wingrave is a lovely little village but it isn't exactly what you would call the height of glamour. I longed to feel the heat of the sand against my back as I lay on the beach, or hear the excited chatter of English tourists on the first day of their holidays. Although I missed Tenerife like crazy, I was also terrified in case I ever got sent back. I was really mixed up.

  Jamie came to visit me a week after my return to the UK, which only added to my misery. He was in England for an army training exercise and decided to pop in to see me whilst he was there. I should have been pleased that he wanted to spend time with me but felt as if it was partly his fault that I had left the island. If he hadn't gone on and on about how I should come and live with him in Northern Ireland, then the thought of going back to Britain probably wouldn't have been at the forefront of my mind. As it was, I had abandoned my friends, my job and my flat despite the fact that the Spanish government might not have even followed up my case if I had just stayed put.

  To be honest I probably put a downer on Jamie's visit with my attitude. It's difficult to seem enthusiastic about anything when you feel as if your dreams have been put through a paper shredder. He still seemed made up to be in my company though.

  'Now that you're not on the wanted list any more, you can move in with me and we can be a proper couple,' he crooned to me as I sat and sulked.

&n
bsp; 'Yeah maybe,' I shrugged. 'I'll see how I get on here before I decide either way.'

  I probably would have remained just as noncommittal if I hadn't had some bad news a couple of weeks after his visit. My dad was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. He had a tumour in his gullet and there was a danger that it could spread throughout his body. The doctor recommended chemotherapy but if that didn't work then he was going to die. I couldn't even imagine what my life would be like without him. We had always been extremely close and he had been there for me whenever I needed him.

  The news sent me spiralling into another fit of depression. I was even more scared for Dad than I had been for myself when I had my haemorrhage. As well as being worried sick in case I lost him, the fact that he could be in perfect nick one minute and then get diagnosed with something as serious as cancer the next, made me worry about my own health. I hadn't had a check-up for a while so I booked myself an appointment just in case anything had gone wrong since my operation.

  It was a good thing I went in because the doctor told me that blood was seeping back into my head.