Original subtitles

It just sounded like most of the other jobs that I'd ever done.

It's a new club in the Caribbean.

There's something not right here, Jamie.

Taking drugs back to England.

Putting drugs in a shampoo bottle.

It's ludicrous. It's mental.

That's it. Life all over. In prison. In the Caribbean. 20 years. Good luck with

that.

How can I still love me after what I've just got him in?

The guard says, Englishman, you'll be dead in two weeks.

Out of the pole, out there.

what we used to call table dancers.

A typical night's work is you go on stage, do a bit of a dance.

It's just basically dancing and having fun and having a laugh with the guys

that's in the audience.

I love music, I love dancing, and the play was excellent.

One night, this girl, she just...

came and asked if I was interested in doing a job abroad.

Mm -hm. God, yeah. What about?

She mentioned it would be Guyana, South America.

Wow. The money would be very good.

I'm thinking, yeah, I could do with a bit of a holiday, to be honest.

I didn't say yes straight away, but I said I probably would do it after I

to David.

Hey, darling.

All right, love?

When I got home that night, David was still up.

Been offered a job?

She said she'd been offered some work out in Guyana in South America.

I said, what type of work? She said, well, lap dancing, pole dancing.

Just basically teaching their locals how to do the job.

I said, not a chance. I said, there's no way I'm letting you go out to South

America, not in a million years.

We didn't argue about it, but I just said no. I said, Jane, it's just not

happening.

I was angry a little bit because I'd got it in my head that I was going off to

the Caribbean.

You can be stubborn, but I usually get my own way, so I thought I'd be able to

stalk him around.

The next time I was working in the club, a girl introduced me to this tall, dark

guy.

Said, oh, I'm Mr Big.

Pleased to meet you.

It was very polite, very charming.

He said to me it was a new club in Guyana.

They needed to teach some of the local girls, so I would be teaching them how

do the pole dancing and just doing a show a night myself.

Relax during the day and then just work at night.

To me...

there was nothing unusual.

I did mention to him that David wasn't so happy about going on my own.

I just asked if it would be possible for David to come with me.

I don't think there'll be a problem at all. Really? Yeah. Wow, that sounds

brilliant. He said, I'll come and meet him.

We'll discuss it so David's comfortable with everything.

I was thinking, that's it, we're off.

In my head, I was already packing my bags.

About two or three days later, I heard a knock at the door.

Hi, how are you? All right. My name is Steve.

Everybody knows me as Biggs.

Came in, sat down.

So? So, David.

Why the fuck are you Dave? Not at all.

And straight away, I liked the guy.

And he said, I know you're probably worried about things and sending a girl

to South America.

It sounds dodgy.

But believe me, that's why I've said I will pay for you to go with her.

Your hotels and everything will be paid for, or your expenses.

I think I just pushed that niggling little doubt to the back of my head.

I'm starting to think, well, you're worrying for no reason.

Come on, when was the last time we had a holiday?

So we decided, yeah, right, let's just go for it, you know. Let's go out there

and have a break. OK.

Bye. We'll do it.

Shook hands.

So I'll be in touch with your tickets.

See you.

I'll see you when you get back.

After he'd gone, Jane was like smiling, laughing.

She said, I knew we were going to go, whether you wanted to or not.

You're happy now? Yes, I'm happy now.

I got my own way in the end.

Yeah, biggest mistake of my life.

Without a shadow of a doubt, you know?

We got off the plane and it was around about, I would say about 8 o 'clock at

night.

Walk to outside expecting someone waiting there, you know, allowed to do

the name cards and everything Someone supposed to meet is there they're not

We had loads of people coming up saying you want a taxi and I'm like, no,

no, we're all right we waiting for someone And I said to Joe we've got to

out of here because I just don't feel safe Well,

we've got the details of the hotel we know where we're going so shall we just

grab a cab and go there.

That's what we did.

The driver pulled up outside the hotel.

It was a big hotel.

Five star. All well lit up. Very clean.

My mood lifted, you know. I felt a lot better.

I thought, fantastic.

This is what I came for.

I went to perception, gave them his names.

I'm David and Jane Bladen.

Couldn't find us. I said,

you need to check. I said, there's got to be a mistake.

Checked again.

We weren't booked in.

And I could see Jane's face.

Then I got a bit... thinking, what the hell's going on?

You're in the middle of South America.

You've got no hotel room.

It's getting late at night.

Nobody's met you.

All my alarm bells that had all been kicked to the back of my head now

ringing again.

I said, look, the only thing we can do is book in. I'll pay for a room.

And then tomorrow, try and get all of these people.

Right, OK. Thank you very much.

We've been about five minutes. I was a bang on the door

Answer the door

Hi, I'm Michael It looked a little bit rough and ready. Well the guy

but plight very polite months. Look. I'm so sorry I should have met you at the

airport all I can do is apologize Jane was there bit angry with the guy

and they were supposed to meet us at the airport.

Saying, look, we've been stood there almost an hour.

You know, we're in a strange country and your leave is there just stranded.

They said, no, no, I can understand you being angry.

It's totally my fault.

I mixed up the flight times.

They were talking nice, being polite, apologising.

They said, well, I know you're at this hotel.

But this is not the hotel we want you to stay.

What do you mean?

He said, this is just, when you come through customs, for your views and

they like to know that you're staying somewhere that's, you know, top of the

range. But don't worry, the other hotel that we're going to take you to is

Jethro's Nice.

Okay. He said, spend the night here, relax, have a good night's sleep.

Okay. He said, good night, and he went.

There you go. Me and Gemma laughing.

The motor lifted again.

It's just been a mistake, you know, these things happen.

The next day, we'd got all our things together.

He met us, it was nice again.

He just took us to the car.

We came off the main road.

and drove down a couple of like i would say basically tracks

uh we will draw for

about another five minutes and we pulled up at this hotel

you see there's a fence all the

way around you know

There was nobody there.

Nobody.

We'd been up there about two minutes and we got a knock on the door.

And it was Michael.

Hiya.

And he was with a big African guy.

And for some reason he'd got a bomber jacket on, you know?

A zip -up jacket.

It looked a bit spooky, the guy, you know?

He's a guy you wouldn't like to cross.

Michael said, oh, this is John.

He'll be taking care of you while you're here.

Anything you need or you want, we have to see John.

So you need to go anywhere into town or anything, you know, John will come with

you and make sure, you know, you're safe.

Michael said they're having a trouble with a licence at the club.

He said, so, everything's on hold for a day, maybe two days.

So, just...

You know, big call, you know, just everything's still on chat.

You're just waiting for the license.

OK.

I'll see you out.

Thinking, here we go again, you know, another problem.

But after it went, Jane said, mind you, that gives us a couple of days, you

know, just to chill out.

Hey, come on, don't worry.

Jane said we can go in the daytime, go to the hotel and somebody, you know, buy

their pool.

the pool was lovely so i'll forget the other hotel i'll just don't matter i'll

just sleep there and come to this one every day hi absolutely

fantastic relaxed i can do two weeks of this now

brilliant i

was laid

there just relaxing

And I could see John coming to the hotel, you know, to the hotel pool area.

You know, I just thought maybe just come in to check, see if we're okay.

He looked serious.

And he leant over to me and said, I need you to go back to the hotel.

I said, there's nothing at that hotel.

I said, we're here, just taking some soda and a drink.

And he just leant over again and said, I need you to go back to the hotel, and

I'm not going to ask you again.

I said, I'm telling you.

Let's go back to the hotel.

End of discussion.

And as he leant over, you could see under his jacket, he had a gun.

Let's come back to the hotel now.

All right?

And I saw David's face express some change.

All right, all right, mate.

I said, Jane, look, just get your things. Let's just go.

We walked through the hotel.

You know, it was silent.

There was a car waiting.

I just don't enjoy it. I said, just get in.

Straight to country.

There's a guy there in the front with a gun.

This is not right.

Panicking, you know?

Starting to panic.

When we got back to the hotel, Michael was waiting.

He said, I need to go up to your room.

I'll come and talk to you in a minute.

Jane's walking around the room, ranting and raving a little bit.

What the hell is going on?

There's nothing to do here.

I said, Jane, just calm down. Let's see what they've got to say.

The door just opened and they walked in.

Michael said, look, I don't know what you've been told in England, but you're

here to do a job.

I said, what do you mean?

Nobody flies all the way to South America for no reason.

I'm here to do a dancing job.

No matter what you've been told, there's no club, no dancing.

Because you know why you're here.

You're taking drugs back to England.

Simple as that.

And I saw them words come out of his mouth. Take drugs back to England.

I just lost it.

John says, you're in this country.

Nobody knows whereabouts you are in the country.

And if we want you to disappear, you'll just disappear.

All of a sudden, they look huge.

I think I'll get it out.

Michael says, look, you're checking your cases and your clothes.

Then we bring them back and we put a key of cocaine in each bag.

One kilo in each bag.

James is shaking and saying, I'm not doing it, I'm not doing it, I'm not

it. John said, you are doing it, and that's

the end of the matter.

Tomorrow morning, you return to the airport, and things will start from

They took his cases, they've got his passport, they've got any money we had.

These guys said, don't try and leave your room, don't try and leave the

They said, because you'll pay.

They said, at the end of the day, you'll pay with your life.

Now we're just stuck there in the room.

Both of us were just absolutely terrified.

For the first time in my life, I just didn't have a clue what to do.

And all I could think is, we've had it, you know. We're in trouble here. We're

in big, big trouble.

At one point, I said, listen, I'm going to have a look and see, you know,

downstairs, see if there's any way we can get out of here.

There's nobody else in the hotel. There's no guests or anything like that.

course, I assume this is just what they use this hotel for.

I walked to the top of the stairs.

Took about three steps down the stairs.

And there's a John stood there right at the side of the door.

There's no other exit from the hotel apart from down these stairs.

You weren't getting out there and it was as simple as that.

We didn't sleep much that night at all.

Can we tell somebody?

Can we tell the police?

But the trouble is our phones didn't work.

The hotel phones didn't work.

We couldn't phone anybody.

I really believe 100%, no doubt about it, these guys would have shot us.

Total and utter nightmare.

I said to Jane, look, we're going to have to do what they say.

Like it or not, we're going to do it.

The next morning, John and Michael barge into the room, brandishing two brand

-new suitcases.

John pulled the bottle out, and it was a shampoo bottle.

And that's when he explained that the drugs was inside these bottles.

I thought, good God, you know, this is going to be

amateur hour, putting drugs in, you know, in a shampoo bottle.

I thought, anybody just, like, opens that, they're going to substrate away

what's in it.

And I said, eight bottles in each case.

They said, you're not flying direct.

You're going from here to St Lucia, into St Martin's, into Guadeloupe,

into France.

And when they get to France, they take a ferry straight to England.

It's ludicrous, you know. It's mental.

There's a reason for it, because the route we take, we know it's safe.

We've done this a thousand times, a thousand times.

Everybody's paid.

The police are paid.

People at the airports are paid. The customs are paid.

So you can't get caught.

They told us when we got back to England, we would be met, and as soon as

handed the case over, we'd be handed an envelope with £8 ,000 in it.

For what you're risking?

Eight grand?

Nothing. You wouldn't do it for a million.

There's no way around it.

In the situation we're in, we've got to do it.

I'm just like a zombie.

I'm just doing what David's telling me to do.

Once you're out there in that car and you're heading towards the airport, then

it becomes real.

She was just terrified and I could see it written all over her face, you know.

I felt, like, quiet, but I didn't want to, like, show my emotions in front of

these guys.

It's killing me inside because I'm the guy and I should be able to look after

her. I shouldn't have let this happen at the end of the day.

And I feel guilty because I can't protect her, you know?

When we arrived at the airport, John opened the boat, took both cases out.

and walked to the airport.

And there's a woman checking the bags.

Straight away, you think, well, that's it. You've had it.

They're searching all the bags.

I said, listen, John, look.

They're going through all the bags.

But John says, you're not going to get searched.

Take your cases, go into the checkout, and get dropped off, and get on the

plane.

We'd watch the queue. Everybody else had been searched. Everybody, everybody

getting cases searched.

I looked back, and John was still stood at the door, just watching.

Making sure it went through.

Make sure we're getting on the plane.

I'm shaking.

I'm waiting.

I'm sure that people could see.

Hear him say.

Can she just wave us over?

God, we're going to get stopped. We're going to get caught.

This is it.

It's never been better now. This wave has passed.

12 cases. Never looked in a bag or anything.

The pressure that was on top of me seemed to just vanish, you know.

Thank you.

And I can remember walking up with Jane and saying, God, that were easy.

Nobody gave us a second glance, you know?

Nobody batted an eyelid.

Maybe it's not going to be as bad as we thought. Maybe we won't get caught.

As we get back into the airport, the worries started coming back again.

We're waiting at the carousel, five, ten minutes, the bicycle now.

And then it's that walk. You know you've got to go through customs, you know?

You've got to go through customs.

And all I kept thinking to myself is, I feel sick now. Calm down, calm down.

It's madness, you know, because your head's going a thousand miles an hour

thinking, if I get stopped, what shall I say, what shall I say?

I'm still scared to death. Do I look like I've got anything with me?

I'm trying to act as calm and normal as possible.

I looked at the guy, he was smiling and I thought he was going to say, come

through.

No problem.

But he just said, can you put your bag on the counter?

And at that point I could have physically been sick there and then.

Yeah.

He asked, have you got the keys to unlock the lock?

He tried to take the key out without shaking.

He never said anything. He just looked at me, looked at the bag, rummaged

through the bag, and it's like he knew what he was going for.

I thought, man... heart was going to come through my mouth.

I'm thinking that's it, we're caught.

This guy's not stupid.

I could have just burst into tears.

And when he flicked the lid open, that's game over, you know. That's it, life

over, in prison, in the Caribbean, 20 years, good luck with that.

But as it happened, when we squirted, it was shampoo that came out.

I couldn't take my eyes off what he was doing, like... Every motion, everything

he was doing.

Looked at me again, took a tissue, waxed and... I go,

said, everything's fine, take your bags, go through.

Have a good fit.

I could have kissed the man, you know.

As we're walking out the airport, both me and David were just laughing.

We knew we'd got through.

It's like you've won the lottery.

The relief is just overwhelming. It's like we've got away with it.

God, it's sheer joy.

It was my birthday.

So David said, go out and have a drink and have a good time for your birthday

for tonight.

I can remember waking up pretty early that night and stinking early, you know,

hangover from hell.

And I just nudged Jane.

I said, how easy was that, Jane? I said... That guy's a customs officer.

And he searched the bags, tried the shampoo, and if it's full in, it's going

fool everybody.

I said, we're going to get this. We'll make this.

Michael said, look, there's a payment of 8 ,000 when you get back to England.

You'll get an envelope with 8 ,000 pounds in it.

We've been through all that turmoil, all the terror, all the pain. If we don't

deserve 8 grand, who does, you know?

let's take these drugs, give them over in England, and let's, you know, just

spend the money.

And I looked at David and said, let's just go the rest of the way home, drop

bottles with them, pick up the cash and go.

Within three days, we've become international drug smuggling.

Innocent parties to drug smuggling, you know, in one fell swoop.

The next morning, we got into the car, went off to the airport.

From St. Louis here, we're heading to Waterloo.

I don't think I was even nervous.

I was acting more normal.

Tourist, island hopping.

I think the nerves are gone because...

We'd done the hard part.

There were a few security guards about.

Small little airport, we're going to get through this a doddle.

Yeah, I was on that.

The bus came round and ours still hadn't come off the plane.

Everybody else got their luggage.

Ours didn't come off the plane.

And I remember looking round and thinking there's less and less people

the airport.

Stood there five minutes.

One bag came round.

Oh, James.

Took it off.

Still waiting for my bag, no bag.

I looked at David and I just said, what's going on?

I'm thinking then, they know, they know.

I said, I've got to go on to the information and report the bag missing.

I said, look, we've just got from St Rochia, there are two bags, there's only

one case.

When Scott found, there's been a mistake, it's been left on the plane

the next destination.

And she said, don't worry, we will deliver it to your hotel.

So then I calmed down again.

They just left it on the plane by mistake.

Don't worry about it.

And now Jane's trying to calm me down.

So I'm trying to think positively. Yeah, it's just a mistake. It's just being

left on board.

Walking to customs, there's nobody else around.

I can't... Nobody, apart from the customs man on the desk.

And all the hell was let loose.

They just appeared.

Out every door.

It was just absolutely pitch black.

There you are on the floor, there's 20 coppers there with guns all armed and

they've got one pressed in the back of your head.

I could hear her saying, I haven't done anything wrong, I haven't done anything

wrong. And I'm trying to say, leave her alone, leave her alone.

And he said, you're under arrest for transportation of cocaine.

Right at that second, my life had gone, you know.

They dragged it into a little room, guns at the back of our heads.

They fetched the casing, put it on the counter in front of us.

He opened the suitcase up and immediately, immediately

picked up a bottle.

Complete and utter fear.

Absolutely terrified.

He just took a standing knife out, cut the bottle open.

Panic, panic, panic.

He got a tester thing.

And he put it, dabbed it.

It's a liquid cocaine.

As you look at me, you can see that she was terrified.

It affects the pressing, to photograph it.

And all the policemen behind, all shaking hands, generally all smiling.

I think they'd been tipped off we were coming.

We were meant to get caught right from the start.

So they could haul 30, 40, 50 kilos through.

All we were were decoys.

Nightmare. Absolute nightmare.

We were both in the back of the van and the giant of the big prison.

God, it's awful.

We got to the prison gate.

There's guards there with the guns and there's all like the barbed wire

They stepped out of the van.

They handcuffed me to one officer and Jane to another one.

I didn't realise that we were going to be taken in through separate doors.

And all I can think about is, God, places like this, I mean, women getting

raped, anything can happen to her.

James!

I was scared to death for the girl, you know?

Scared to death for her.

He just looked at me, he turned and he just said it. He shouted, I love you.

I love you!

I love you!

I'm thinking, how can he?

I'm thinking, how can he still love me after what I've just got him into?

I remember there's walking through the gates and everything was quiet, silent,

strange.

Two officers came at the side of me.

And he opened the door.

You've never heard anything like it in your life.

Shouts and abuse.

Banging the door.

Banging and banging and smashing.

And they're throwing fires out the window.

Burning cloths, burning those.

And he turned to me and he says, English man.

He says, you'll be dead in two weeks.

Conditions for me weren't that bad.

The rooms was clean.

The guards were quite nice.

By that point, I wasn't scared for myself anymore.

I was worried about David.

I was scared for him.

Every day I was in prison, you live in fear that someone's going to stab you,

someone's going to kill you.

In there, you've got basically...

All the dregs of the earth, you know, you've got from petty criminals to armed

robbers, murderers, child killers.

Some big guys, small guys.

Some nasty looking animals.

It wasn't a day I didn't see somebody getting stabbed or somebody getting

slashed.

I was terrified.

I'd been in there two weeks.

It was a Sunday afternoon.

I can remember walking down some steel stairs that go to the bottom of London.

It was blisteringly hot.

I'd got a shirt on and I took the shirt off.

But as I got the shirt over my head,

a guard smashed

a leg from underneath me.

And I fell down the stairway.

I hit my head.

I hit my back.

And I've just felt the bones in my back crunch.

I ended up on a heap on the bottom.

I could feel blood gushing out of my head, you know.

And the guy just walked away.

Just left me on the concrete at the bottom of the stairs.

Somebody fetched a white sheet from somewhere and threw it over me, you

They thought I was dead.

They took me to the infirmary, and I was semi -conscious, in and out of

consciousness.

Three broken ribs, dislocated shoulder.

I needed about 14 stitches in my head.

And the bottom two lumbar discs had just exploded into nothing. No, they'd just

gone. Yeah, completely gone.

They gave me a pair of crutches and they lugged me back to prison.

Crippled.

The back, it was horrendous pain, but they don't care. They just want you back

in the system.

I'd heard a rumour that he'd been attacked.

The prison guard told me that he was hurt badly, but they didn't give me any

details.

I was like, I was just scared to death the whole time. I'm terrified for him.

Not for me, but for him.

I could see the women's cell block through the cell window.

So I took the pillowcase off.

I got a marker pen of some kind, and I just wrote on it.

And I put it like a flag outside of the window.

I just seen the back corner of my eye.

I glimpsed, and I seen this big pillowcase out of the window.

It just said, Jane.

I love you on it.

And I instantly knew it was David.

Hey!

And I took my arm out of the window and I'm waving and then I started shouting

to him.

The first time I saw James' arm come through the window, it like, it made my

heart like, you know, it's racing.

I love you!

And just to hear a voice to shout, you know, I love you.

Just for that few seconds, it meant the world.

When we actually got the release forms, I was like, oh, it was amazing.

I knew that day I was here that we was actually going home.

The guard come with a wheelchair and they wheeled me to the reception.

Ran up to him, hugging him to bits.

And I'm thinking I'm not letting him go just in case they take me back.

They're just like, come on, let's just...

Get out of here, you know.

It's joy, overwhelming for you.

We're out of that hole, you know, that cuspid of a prison.

Against the odds, I survived.

They tried to kill me, but I survived.

i've paid a high price you know i've paid a very high price health -wise uh

yeah it's it's damaged beyond repair then two years has cost

me my mobility you know i will end up in a wheelchair with a lot of

people it would have broke them but i just love him today

I regret not having a little bit more common sense at the time and sticking to

my instincts, you know, and I just go into a situation that anybody can go

Believe me, it can happen to anybody.

It really can.

We never once blamed each other.

I love her to bits, you know. I love her bones, the girl.

We'll always be soulmates, you know.

Always.