Welcome to Hell

by Colin Martin

  I had been treated like an animal for so long I had almost begun to believe I was one. I couldn’t believe I’d survived seven and a half years in that hell hole.

  * * *

  When the day finally came, a guard came to me and told me I was going to be deported. I was to gather my possessions and prepare to leave.

  He said I would be taken to the Siriacha Immigration Detention Centre until my travel arrangements were finalised.

  It was actually happening. I couldn’t believe it.

  Everyone except the guards was happy for me. I hastily collected what belongings I had and gave my friends all the sports equipment I’d bought. I gave away most of my clothing, my bedding, and my radio.

  I went around and said goodbye to everyone. People hugged me. I felt terrible for them. I knew that many of them would never get to see this day; they would die in this stinking hell hole.

  After that it was just a matter of collecting what little money I had in my prison account and then signing the release papers.

  I was marched by two commandos to the front gate. In all the years that I’d spent there, I had never been to this part of the prison. I glanced over my shoulder as I left the prison complex. It was a surreal experience that has remained with me to this day.

  Through a window, I could see the outside world. Bangkok hadn’t changed in the almost eight years I’d spent inside. The city was still the same.

  * * *

  The Siriacha Police were waiting for me with handcuffs, but after talking to the prison guards they decided they wouldn’t need to handcuff me. I wasn’t going to give them any problems.

  It felt fantastic finally to walk the last 50 yards and out into the fresh air of real life and freedom. Well, almost freedom.

  I was marched to a pick-up truck parked outside the front gate and ordered to sit into the back seat.

  This was the last time I’d get to see the imposing structure of Lard Yao. It was almost tranquil to look at from the outside. Only the inmates knew the horror and squalor of the inside.

  Once I got into the jeep, the guards got in and sat beside me. We drove a short distance to the immigration office in Siriacha where I was processed.

  I was told that I would have to spend the night there in a cell with 12 others. These were all Cambodians who’d entered Thailand illegally to work. This didn’t bother me. The police cell was like a hotel compared to some of the places I’d recently lived in.

  The next morning, I was taken in the back of a pick-up truck back to the Immigration Detention Centre. The jeep drove leisurely along the winding back streets. When I got there, it was as if they had wrenched freedom from my grasp. It was just like Lard Yao.

  I was processed yet again and pushed into an overcrowded cell. There was no room to stand, there were no beds, and the whole place stank of shit.

  Everybody slept on the floor. Each room had a room leader and you had to pay him for a place to sleep and the use of a couple of old blankets.

  When I objected to the conditions, the immigration staff went mad. After a brief argument with them, I gave up. I knew the score. They would hold me there for months if I got on the wrong side of the guards. I bit my lip and said nothing. There was no point.

  When I began to look around, I was very surprised to see three guys from Cambodia whom I’d known in Lard Yao. They’d been released back in August with the amnesty but they didn’t have the money for their air fares home, so they were now stuck in the Immigration Detention Centre until they could somehow raise it.

  Luckily for me, the money for my air fare wasn’t a problem thanks to John Mulcahy and Phoenix.

  I didn’t sleep much that night. The place reminded me of Chonburi Prison. There were remarkable similarities between the two places; they were both overcrowded hell holes.

  The next morning, Trudy Goodfield from the Irish consulate came to see me and told me that she had arranged my ticket home. Trudy knew her way around Bangkok and had been helpful in the past.

  She said there would be no problems. She said she’d bought my ticket and faxed the airline to confirm that there’d be no problems.

  I was taken to Bangkok’s Don Muang Airport by an immigration officer on 26 January.

  In typical Thai style, he had the handcuffs ready, but offered not to cuff me for a bribe of 500 baht. The Thai police were determined to get every penny I had right to the very end. This smart bastard explained that if I arrived at the check-in desk handcuffed to him, the airline would view me as dangerous and there would be a good chance that I wouldn’t be allowed to board the flight.

  I didn’t know whether he was telling the truth or lying but I wasn’t willing to take the chance. I handed him the money.

  Once at the airport, I was handed over to the immigration officials based there. On that day there were six people brought for deportation – three Chinese women, one Pakistani man, one Colombian and myself. Downstairs, the holding cells were packed with foreigners still waiting on money for their tickets home.

  Thailand is corrupt to the core. People facing deportation have to pay for their own fare home, and they are sent back to jail if they can’t.

  With 30 minutes left to flight time, I was approached by one of the guards and told that I wouldn’t be allowed to check in or travel on any flight. He said the airline had said they wouldn’t accept deportees.

  That was it. I lost my temper and demanded that I be allowed speak to the flight attendants.

  If I didn’t get a flight I’d have to go back to the detention centre – for days, weeks or months.

  All I wanted was to go home. Now, with freedom so close, I couldn’t bear to think that it might be taken away from me again.

  The only thing to do was to try a different airline. I had a little money in my pocket, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough for another ticket. After all I’d been through there was no way that I was going back to that shit hole of a detention centre without trying.

  Some of my Irish friends from Bangkok had come to the airport to see me off, so I borrowed some money from them.

  I bribed the guard into accompanying me to the flight desks. I tried airline after airline but not one would accept deportees.

  Finally, I was told that Thai Airways might take me. With three minutes to final call I dashed over and begged the flight attendant to sell me a ticket.

  She said no at first, but agreed to help when I spoke to her in Thai. I bought a ticket, dashed back to check in and then raced off to the boarding gate.

  Once I went through the gate I didn’t even look back. I rushed onto the plane that would take me home.

  The guard tried to extort money from me right till the end. As he let me go, he asked me for money for his daughter. It was at this point that I told him to fuck off. I handed my passport to the immigration control and never looked back. I was going home.

  18

  I decided that I wouldn’t go straight home to my family. If I did that, I figured, I’d get the bends. It would be just too much for me to handle. Instead, I would take some time to myself and just get used to being free.

  I made my way to a bar in Shepherds Bush run by a friend who had written to me while I was in prison. Her name was Margaret, and she’d been good enough to send me food parcels and cards while I was in Bangkok. She agreed to let me stay with her for a few days.

  When I walked into the bar, I was dumbfounded. The barmaid asked me what I’d like to drink but I just couldn’t answer. I looked around me but I hardly recognised any of the stuff on the shelves. Everything had changed so much in the years I’d been away.

  ‘Just give me a pint of lager,’ I said.

  The barmaid just stood there looking at me, until I eventually pointed at the Stella tap.

  I couldn’t believe how good it tasted. I’d never
enjoyed a pint so much. Anything we’d had to drink in prison was always lukewarm and usually dirty. I wasn’t used to the feeling of being really refreshed by food or drink, and it came as a surprise to feel the cold liquid hit my stomach. This was the first beer I’d had since I’d sat laughing with the police captain in his office eight years previously, just before I was taken to be tortured.

  Margaret gave me a good meal and I went to bed early. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep at first. I was staying in the bedroom of Margaret’s teenage daughter, who had just moved away to university. The room was huge, papered all over in pink, and the bed was big and soft, with a fluffy duvet. I couldn’t imagine anything further away from the stinking cell I had shared with 60 criminals. It made my head reel. How could I fit into this world of comfort after what I’d been through, what I’d seen? How could I ever become a normal, happy person again? With these thoughts whirling around in my mind, I eventually fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.

  When I awoke it was afternoon. After I’d showered and eaten, I decided to go into the city and do a little sightseeing and shopping. Of course, I had no clothes except the shorts, and t-shirt I’d worn in prison and a few items I’d borrowed from one of the people who’d been helping me out there. I got myself kitted out with a decent shirt and trousers, and bought a pair of shoes. The shoes actually hurt my feet – it was a long time since I’d been able to wear anything except flip-flops or cheap trainers, and at first I felt a little confined.

  After I’d made myself presentable, the first thing I did was visit one of the agencies that had helped me. I wanted to thank them in person. They were surprised to see me, and told me that no one they had helped had ever come to see them before. They asked me all sorts of questions, including what they could do for the boys over there, and what they could send that would make life a little easier. I wanted to forget the whole thing, and didn’t particularly enjoy going over the whole experience again, but the kindness of people like these was sometimes the only thing that kept me going in there. I didn’t want to forget about them just because I had my freedom. That wouldn’t be right or fair – and believe it or not, I still believed in justice.

  One of the strangest things I experienced at that time was walking through the London crowds. I was used to having people pressing in on me all the time, and constantly having to watch my back. When I found myself surrounded by Londoners on a crowded street, in a lift or even in a queue in a shop, my guard went up automatically. I felt very nervous and my instinct was just to get out of there.

  At one point that afternoon I was in a gift shop trying to choose presents to bring home to my family. The shop was small and cluttered, and all of a sudden a group of tourists rushed in. They were all shouting in a language I didn’t understand, pushing each other and laughing. I was forcibly reminded of the cells at Chonburi, at the time when I knew no one and couldn’t speak any Thai. For one second, the horror rushed back into my mind and overwhelmed me. I left my basket of gifts on the shop floor and made for the door as quickly as I could.

  All in all, though, it was fantastic to be free. I stayed about a week in London, and I made up my mind to enjoy myself. In the evenings I would go for a drink in the bar with Margaret and her friends, and sometimes I would just wander around the pubs and nightclubs, just getting used to being able to do what I wanted, and talking to ordinary decent people who didn’t want to screw money out of me.

  As I say, I’d decided to enjoy myself, and I did get pretty drunk on one or two of those nights. I think I needed to. It was a way to let out all the tension, to try to deal with the enormous change in my life.

  One night I found myself in the bar of a hotel. I fell in with a group of five or six people who were staying there. They wanted to know about me, what I did, where I was from and so on – so I told them I had just been released from Lard Yao prison. All of a sudden everybody started buying me pints, and the next thing I knew, I was well and truly pissed.

  Everyone in the group was nice, but there was one young woman I was getting on with particularly well. Her name was Kate, and she was beautiful, with blonde hair and big, blue eyes. I found I could really talk to her, and she seemed to understand me. She didn’t just want to hear the gory details of what went on in prison, and it was a relief not to be asked about them. We soon found ourselves separated from the rest of the group and deep in conversation.

  I hadn’t allowed myself to think about women at all when I was in prison. If I had, I’d have gone mad or ended up losing my self-control like Simon or the other scumbags in there. But now, a beautiful young woman was showing real interest in me. I could hardly believe it.

  At the end of the night, she invited me up to her room.

  I woke up the next morning with a pounding head. Kate was already dressed and getting ready to leave. She was going back home that morning to the north of England. I’d realised that we were both in London for only a short time, and besides, I wasn’t ready for a relationship, but I definitely wasn’t sorry I’d met her. After all, I’d been celibate for eight years. I wasn’t about to say no when a gorgeous blonde invited me up to her hotel room.

  I gave her a kiss on the cheek before she left, then she went her way and I went mine.

  * * *

  I needed London. Eight years’ worth of anger and distress was pent up in my mind and my body. A few mad nights had helped me to let it all out. But after a week or so, I was ready to go back to my real life.

  Some friends collected me from London and brought me back to Dublin, to help ease the transition into my new world. I arrived in Dublin at 7.30 p.m. on 31 January 2005. My brother Tommy was to drive down and pick me up. I couldn’t wait to see him again, but I was nervous at the same time. I didn’t know how he’d react to me after so long, or whether we could still have the close relationship we once did.

  It was almost an anti-climax arriving home. My friends had deliberately kept my arrival quiet, so there was no throng of press journalists – just a solitary photographer knew about my arrival and he finished taking his shots fairly quickly. We sat and waited for Tommy to arrive. After an hour there was no sign of him, but we decided to stay another while longer. Forty minutes later I figured that he must have changed his mind, so we left.

  I stayed in Dublin that night. Everything was still strange to me, right down to the smallest things like upholstered furniture, knobs on the doors and even having knives and forks to eat with. I’d been using my hands for so long I could only fumble clumsily with proper cutlery. It would take me ages to eat a meal, and I’m sure there were people who thought I was a real clown when they saw me miss my mouth and drop food all over the place. But even though everything I had known so well was now unfamiliar to me, it was clear that things had changed a hell of a lot.

  I was glad to see that the country had become a lot more multi-cultural than it was before I left. I saw people from just about every part of the world on the streets of Dublin, it seemed. Every single person had a sleek little mobile phone, which looked a million miles away from the brick-like things which had been available to only a few people when I was last in Ireland.

  I checked into a hotel for the rest of the night and rang Tommy as soon as I settled in. He had just arrived back from Dublin Airport – empty handed! He had gone to the airport to collect me as arranged, but he didn’t recognise me. I didn’t realise I had changed so much. I knew I was no broader and stronger looking, and my shaved head now replaced the balding patch that I once sported, but I figured my brother would recognise me. He had expected me to be alone, so when he saw me with a man and woman he assumed he must have been mistaken. The following morning, my friend drove me to Dundalk to meet Tommy, and this time, there was no case of mistaken identity. We hugged each other so tightly and tried to erase the years that had separated us. It was truly wonderful seeing him again and for the first time since being released, I started to really
unwind and let the remaining tension leave me.

  We walked about the town, where everything in general seemed to have become a lot more sophisticated. Tommy told me that the White Oaks pub where I used to drink in my home town was now an upmarket restaurant. Then there was the euro. It was going to take a while to get used to a new currency. For a long time I took a pocket calculator wherever I went.

  Despite all these changes, despite the fact that very little was familiar to me now, I really felt like I was coming back to where I belonged. After years of displacement, I was finally home.

  I stayed with Tommy when I went back to my home town the next day. The first thing I did was to go and see my children. Jason is now 17, Carl is 13 and Nicole is now 12. I had thought that I might never see them again, so I was over the moon actually to be back in their company. We had been in constant contact while I was in jail; they wrote to me all the time, so I hadn’t been totally cut off. But I was delighted to see how much they’d grown, how they’d turned into young adults. I was so proud of them all.

  They were a little reserved with me at first, but after a while it was just as it always had been. I had just missed Nicole’s birthday, so I took her shopping and treated her to some new clothes. I would take them all for ice cream or to the cinema, or we would watch movies together at home. Just spending time with them made me feel unbelievably lucky. If there’s one good thing that has come out of my prison experience, it’s that I probably appreciate my family even more than I would have if I hadn’t had to live without them for eight years. I’ll never ever take them for granted.

  I’ve never lied to them about what happened to me. That wouldn’t be right or fair to them. But I don’t think they fully understand the horror of what went on in there. How could they? It’s hard enough for most adults to absorb, even if they know the whole story. I’ve asked their mother to read this book first, and then decide if they should be allowed to see it. But my feeling is that the sooner all of us forget about it, the better.