by Colin Martin
It took me a while to pull my head together, but I think I’ve adjusted fairly well to life on the outside. I’ve got myself a place to live near where my children and their mother live, and I started working as a welder recently. During a radio interview, a former employer of mine rang in to say that I was one of the best welders that had ever worked for him, and that I could have a job with him whenever I wanted it. I soon took him up on his offer
I still write to a few of the guys I was friends with in Lard Yao. I know how much a letter means to the prisoners, so I’ve sworn to myself that I won’t forget them. I try not to rub it in – if I’ve just been for a steak dinner I tactfully leave it out of my letter – but they’re always keen to know what I’m up to and how I’m getting on.
As best I can, I have been trying to block out the memory of what happened to me in Thailand. I try not to think about it. But that’s more easily said than done, and something – a smell, a chance remark or something as vague as the expression in someone’s face – will always bring the whole ordeal up in my mind when I least expect it.
Sometimes I still feel like going out drinking like I did when I was in London. It’s easy for me to see why so many people who have been through a trauma like mine become alcoholics. Alcohol will drive out the memories, even if only for a while. But no matter how much you drink, they will always come back eventually – in your thoughts and in your dreams. The Bangkok Hilton will always be with me.
I’ll never be the same person as I was before I went to Thailand either. I’m a changed man. I spent close to eight years in a Thai prison. That’s bound to fuck you up to some degree, no matter how strong you are. I witnessed things that no one should ever have to see; I was forced to do things no one should have to do.
One of the things that disturbed me the most was that my eyes were opened to the ability of one human being to inflict cruelty and brutality upon another. It was beyond any normal person’s comprehension. But the single most disgusting, the most appalling and saddest thing I encountered, was indifference. The indifference of the guards, the indifference of the system, the indifference of Thailand’s population and the world’s public to injustice. It was an indifference that’s a disgrace to the human race.
I’ve written this book to try and put a stop to this indifference. There are thousands like me – innocent people subjected to unspeakable suffering in Thailand.
When I was dying in that stinking hell hole, I didn’t want pity – I wanted justice. But before the system can be changed, its horror must be acknowledged.
The kind of suffering I went through is hard for most people to imagine. I’ve written this book so you don’t have to imagine it. Most people will find it hard to take in; some won’t even believe it. But it’s all true, and I’ve written it so that the abominable brutality and injustice people like me are being subjected to every day will be known and acknowledged. I’ve told my story for you. I’ve told my story so that you can look hell in the eye.
Epilogue
There is nothing new about the conditions and brutality in the Thai prison system. It’s been going on for years and it’s been reported for years, yet nothing has really changed. Most people in the world have at least heard about some of the horror stories coming out of Thailand. The Thai government and public are fully aware of what goes on behind these walls, but nobody seems to care.
It’s surprising just how quickly you can lose your friends when you’ve been charged with murder. Almost no one from my home town bothered to write to me. The town council were more interested in chip vans and where they should be allowed to park.
For Irish prisoners in Thailand and elsewhere around the world, there is the Irish Commission for Prisoners Overseas (ICPO). They’re a charity organisation that tries to help Irish men and women incarcerated in foreign countries. Unfortunately they don’t have a big enough budget to offer financial assistance, but they still do whatever they can and will push the Foreign Affairs department for action as much as possible.
They also write and send cards to prisoners. They have a pen friend scheme too. All I could ever say was that I loved them all and I’d be home as soon as I could. It wasn’t much of an answer, but it’s the only answer I had.
Now I’m out of that hole we’ll have to try and recover some of the years we’ve lost.
My wife Nanglung has offered to sell me my son Brendan. Of course, I have no intention of buying my child, but the embassy is due to issue him with a passport. Eventually he’ll come to Ireland to live with me, and we can try to live as a family. How much my children have actually been affected by all this is impossible to tell, but children are strong. My hope is that they’ll forget quickly, and we can get on with our lives.
A colleague and me reporting the con to the tourist police—the department that deals with foreigners. It was at their hands that I would later be brutally tortured for five hours.
© Andrew Chant
Leaving Chonburi court. I’d just been found guilty of murder. This was one of the few occasions I was allowed to wear a suit to court, but I was still forced to wear 4 kg shackles on my legs.
© Andrew Chant
Working out helped take my mind off things.
© Author’s private collection
Messing around in the ‘gym’ in Lard Yao, which was really just a hut with some weights in it.
© Author’s private collection
I got some of my aggression out through muay Thai kick-boxing while I was in Lard Yao prison.
© Author’s private collection
When I was first taken to prison.
© Andrew Drummond
About to be released. I toughened up a lot over the eight-year strech.
© Author’s private collection
At Dublin Airport just moments after I arrived home.
Courtesy of the Irish Daily Star on Sunday
Acknowledgements
Many kind-hearted people in Ireland and elsewhere gave me support, and it meant the world to me.
My greatest supporter was John Mulcahy at Phoenix. He wrote a number of articles in his magazine to highlight my case. An appeal fund was launched by Phoenix which enabled me buy food and cover my legal costs.
The support the appeal received was fantastic and, to be honest, I couldn’t have survived without it. People from all over Ireland seem to have sent in a few quid. It was great to know that if I needed money for food or medicine I only had to ask and John would send it. No more worrying where my next meal would come from really lifted a weight from my shoulders. I owe a debt that I could never repay to all the people of Ireland who had the heart to help me, even though they’d probably never even heard of me before.
A Ms Lily Byrne, whom I knew only vaguely, wrote offering to help in any way she could. She arranged a petition demanding that the Irish Foreign Affairs department look into my case.
I received a letter from Dr Liam O’Gorman who is a member of Amnesty International in Ireland. Dr O’Gorman tried to use any of his contacts to put pressure on the Irish government to help me and he wrote numerous letters himself. We became good friends, and he sent me some money and a parcel of medical supplies that would cure anything from a headache to hairy palms.
Journalist John Mooney wrote a few articles in his paper, reprinted the Phoenix appeal and included my name and address at the prison so that people could write to me directly. He also donated money himself to my appeal fund. He even took the time to come and visit me.
Elizabeth O’Neill of Magill also made the trip out to Thailand. Magill printed articles I’d written under the title Letters from Bangkok, and they too donated money to my appeal. I had various other Irish journalists write or visit me if they were in Thailand, but John Mulcahy, John Mooney and Elizabeth O’Neill are the ones that really stand out.
I also got a visit from time to t
ime from Dr Dan Breen. He’s an Irish professor at one of the universities in Thailand. Dr Breen is also a member of the Thai Union of Civil Liberties and he gave me advice and tried to help me with my case.
There were always a lot of missionaries visiting too. I didn’t go to any of the visits with the bible bashers. I didn’t need anyone to tell me about Jesus. I had learnt a long time ago that nobody was going to save me.
A priest called Father Oliver and an Irish nun working in Bangkok, Sister Louise Horgan, were the only ones who didn’t try to stuff religion down my throat. I was always pleased to see them. Sister Louise might be getting on a bit, but she always made me laugh – something we really needed in prison.
I also had visits from people passing through Thailand on holiday. Some had read about me before they came over. Obviously, a few were nervous about coming and some weren’t sure if I’d want to be visited by strangers, but they still came. For people to take time out from a holiday they’d just paid a fortune for to come and visit a prisoner meant a lot to the men behind bars. It might be the only visit they ever got, or the only friendly face they ever saw. We did get the odd thrill seeker who only wanted to know the gory details, but 99 per cent were genuinely interested in our welfare and shocked at the conditions we were forced to live in. Some would leave a little money or buy us some fruit in the prison shop at the front of the prison (these visits were always known as ‘banana visits’).
The food they bought I always shared with the other guys who didn’t have much, and when they’d get a banana visit they’d share with me. It’s the way we survived. Most of the men would share what little they had, because being selfish doesn’t pay in the end.
I had visits from people of many nationalities. Two beautiful Danish girls stick out in my mind, as they came back to visit me two or three times, and two beautiful English girls, Tanya Cook and Alisha, who visited and then sent postcards to cheer me up.
Some of the Irish bars in Pattaya and Bangkok took collections from time to time to raise a little money to help when it was needed. I felt very lucky.
My pen friend Ann did a great job of cheering me up. I wrote a lot of letters in prison and have been lucky to make such good friends – Helen, Miriam and Colin, Arthur, Eddie, Martha, and John L.
I received letters and cards and also food parcels, some on a regular basis, from Helen, Martha, Tom, Liam, Margaret, John and Paddy, to name just a few. Unfortunately, some of the people who wrote or sent parcels didn’t include a return address, so to some people I never will get the chance to say thank you.
I also received letters and parcels from Margaret Shiels in London. She’s the proprietor of the Coningham Arms, an Irish bar in Shepherd’s Bush where I used to drink when I was working in London at the age of 18.
My ex-wife Paula and my three children wrote to me regularly. Although it can be hard explaining to your children where you are and why, I never lied to them about it. That wouldn’t be right or fair to them. It was very hard for me, though, when my daughter asked, ‘Daddy, when are you coming home?’
How do you explain to your children that you’re innocent but they still lock you up? How do you explain about appeals and verdicts and constitutional courts, or amnesty from the king?
All I could ever say was that I loved them all and I’d be home as soon as I could. It wasn’t much of an answer, but it’s the only answer I had.
Now I’m out of that hole we’ll have to try and recover some of the years we’ve lost.
Published by Maverick House Publishers.
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