SANDRA GREGORY'S APPEAL TO THE KING OF THAILAND

EDM number 1006 in 1998-99, proposed by Michael Moore on 10/11/1999.

That this House calls on the Government for an early completion of the review of government policy towards supporting appeals by British citizens convicted of criminal offences under foreign jurisdictions in terms that would enable them to support the appeal to His Majesty, the King of Thailand, due to be heard in December, on behalf of British citizen, Sandra Gregory, who pleaded guilty in 1993 to trying to export 88 grams of heroin, was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment, subsequently reduced in a royal amnesty to 21 years and 10 and a half months, served three years of her sentence in Bangkok, and continues to be held in a high security prison in the UK, where there is growing support for her release on the grounds that she was a first-time offender, not a drugs baron, deeply regrets her offence and wishes to warn others of the dangers of drugs, was suffering from dhengi fever and amoebic dysentery at the time of the offence, weighing only six stone, 30 per cent. below her normal body weight, is a model prisoner who presents no threat to society and has secured widespread public support including politicians of all parties, all the major churches and national, regional and local media, all factors in mitigation of the offence that would certainly commend themselves to the Thai authorities, especially if the case for clemency was endorsed by the British Government.

This motion has been signed by a total of 1 MPs.