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Briton faces up to two years in Thai jail after 'passport mix-up'
Kickboxer charged with insulting immigration officials claims UK embassy wrongly branded travel document false
* Ian MacKinnon and Andrew Drummond in Bangkok
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 March 2009 12.18 GMT
A British man holidaying in Thailand claimed he was beaten, handcuffed and jailed after Foreign Office diplomats mistakenly told Phuket immigration officials he was travelling on a false passport.
Simon Burrowes, 44, also claimed that officials from the British embassy in Bangkok acknowledged their error only after he had spent 11 days in a cramped cell with 126 inmates.
Burrowes, from Wembley, north London, has been barred from leaving Thailand and is on £2,000 bail after being charged with insulting the immigration officials during the initial altercation over the passport.
The 6ft 3ins Thai kick-boxing instructor admits he lost his temper as his flight left without him. But he must wait until the end of next month to appear in court and could face up to two years in jail.
The nearest the embassy has come to apologising was a remark by the consular official in Phuket whom, he claims, said: "I can empathise with your self-righteousness. It was a one-in-a-thousand glitch."
Burrowes was ending a three-week working holiday as trainer to British kick-boxing champion, Michael Nagle, when he went to the airport to catch his flight home on a Friday and was arrested.
"Thai immigration officials were suspicious of my passport," said Burrowes. "When they checked with the British embassy, an official told them my passport number didn't exist.
"I spoke to the embassy official. He said it didn't exist. I begged him to double check. But he refused because the embassy closed at Friday midday. They said they'd prioritise the matter the following week, so I was sent to jail. Officials had all day in London to check. I can't believe they couldn't have done it."
Burrowes, whose parents are from Guyana, says he was treated like a drugs' smuggler and taken to jail because he did not have the £2,000 bail the authorities demanded.
"From that moment on I was treated as someone less than human," he said. "I was handcuffed to another Thai and sent to court. As I was led into the court I was beaten by an official with a leather strap."
Four days later the British consular official visited him in jail. It was a week later that embassy officials visited again, told him his passport had been verified as genuine seven days earlier.
The officials then told him he was being detained on a charge that he was "rude and aggressive" to the Thai immigration controllers, which was the first he knew of it.
Burrowes, concedes he used the words "fucking" and "idiot" in front of immigration officials when his flight, for which his ticket was non-refundable, left without him.
"They'd kept me waiting an hour studying my passport with a magnifying glass," he said. "I was angry. I grabbed my passport and walked out of the immigration area, saying, 'I'm a British citizen who has come to your country to spend my money. Don't treat me like a fucking idiot."
Thai immigration police say it was they who were called "fucking idiots". His case could take a year, longer if he pleads not guilty, and the first hearing is not until 27 April.
A spokesman for the Bangkok embassy could not discuss the details of the case, but said no officials had at any time told anyone involved that the passport was not valid. Nor had any official admitted "glitches" or "empathised" with Burrowes.
"We proceeded to check the validity of the passport immediately on being informed by the police of his arrest on Friday," he said. "The diplomatic mission that issued the passport replied to confirm the passport the following Tuesday and we informed the police who dropped the charges."
Kickboxer charged with insulting immigration officials claims UK embassy wrongly branded travel document false
* Ian MacKinnon and Andrew Drummond in Bangkok
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 March 2009 12.18 GMT
A British man holidaying in Thailand claimed he was beaten, handcuffed and jailed after Foreign Office diplomats mistakenly told Phuket immigration officials he was travelling on a false passport.
Simon Burrowes, 44, also claimed that officials from the British embassy in Bangkok acknowledged their error only after he had spent 11 days in a cramped cell with 126 inmates.
Burrowes, from Wembley, north London, has been barred from leaving Thailand and is on £2,000 bail after being charged with insulting the immigration officials during the initial altercation over the passport.
The 6ft 3ins Thai kick-boxing instructor admits he lost his temper as his flight left without him. But he must wait until the end of next month to appear in court and could face up to two years in jail.
The nearest the embassy has come to apologising was a remark by the consular official in Phuket whom, he claims, said: "I can empathise with your self-righteousness. It was a one-in-a-thousand glitch."
Burrowes was ending a three-week working holiday as trainer to British kick-boxing champion, Michael Nagle, when he went to the airport to catch his flight home on a Friday and was arrested.
"Thai immigration officials were suspicious of my passport," said Burrowes. "When they checked with the British embassy, an official told them my passport number didn't exist.
"I spoke to the embassy official. He said it didn't exist. I begged him to double check. But he refused because the embassy closed at Friday midday. They said they'd prioritise the matter the following week, so I was sent to jail. Officials had all day in London to check. I can't believe they couldn't have done it."
Burrowes, whose parents are from Guyana, says he was treated like a drugs' smuggler and taken to jail because he did not have the £2,000 bail the authorities demanded.
"From that moment on I was treated as someone less than human," he said. "I was handcuffed to another Thai and sent to court. As I was led into the court I was beaten by an official with a leather strap."
Four days later the British consular official visited him in jail. It was a week later that embassy officials visited again, told him his passport had been verified as genuine seven days earlier.
The officials then told him he was being detained on a charge that he was "rude and aggressive" to the Thai immigration controllers, which was the first he knew of it.
Burrowes, concedes he used the words "fucking" and "idiot" in front of immigration officials when his flight, for which his ticket was non-refundable, left without him.
"They'd kept me waiting an hour studying my passport with a magnifying glass," he said. "I was angry. I grabbed my passport and walked out of the immigration area, saying, 'I'm a British citizen who has come to your country to spend my money. Don't treat me like a fucking idiot."
Thai immigration police say it was they who were called "fucking idiots". His case could take a year, longer if he pleads not guilty, and the first hearing is not until 27 April.
A spokesman for the Bangkok embassy could not discuss the details of the case, but said no officials had at any time told anyone involved that the passport was not valid. Nor had any official admitted "glitches" or "empathised" with Burrowes.
"We proceeded to check the validity of the passport immediately on being informed by the police of his arrest on Friday," he said. "The diplomatic mission that issued the passport replied to confirm the passport the following Tuesday and we informed the police who dropped the charges."
Three working days? What exceptional arrogance these cunts in that office have.
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