Original subtitles

We've just found it like most of the odd jobs that I've ever done.

It's a new club in the Caribbean.

There's something not right here, Jane.

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.

You'll be dead in two weeks.

I was appalled out there.

They're what we used to call table dancers.

Their 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 table's excellent.

One night, this girl, she just... came and asked if I was interested in doing a

job abroad.

Mm -hmm. 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 even 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 it would be a problem at all. Really? Wow, that sounds brilliant.

I 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, all 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, that's right, let's just go for it, you know. Let's go out

there and have a break.

OK. Nice.

We'll do it.

Shook hands.

They said, 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 happy now? Yes, I'm happy now.

I got my own way in the end.

Yeah, biggest mistake of my life.

That's a shadow of a doubt, you know.

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

at night.

Walk to outside expecting someone waiting there, you know what to do with

name cards and everything Someone's supposed to meet you 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're 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 welded 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 Blaine.

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?

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.

So I said, look, the only thing we can do is book in, pay for a room, and then

tomorrow try and get all of these people.

OK, thank you very much.

We'd been about five minutes. There was a bang on the door.

I answered the door.

Hi, I'm Michael.

It looked a little bit rough and ready, you know, the guy. But polite, very

polite, man. Look, I'm so sorry. I should have met you at the airport.

All I can do is apologise.

Jane was a bit angry with the guy.

Oh, hello.

Are you the person that was 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 you leave us there just stranded.

He said, no, no, he said, I can understand you being angry.

It's totally my fault.

I mixed up the flight times.

He was talking nice, being polite, apologising.

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

But this is not the hotel we wanted to stay at.

What do you mean?

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

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 just

as nice as this one. 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 Jim were 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 up 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

But 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 it 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 was 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 track.

You're just waiting for your license.

OK.

I'll see you out.

I'm 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 other 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.

But 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...

Let's go back to the hotel.

End of discussion.

I just saw David's face express some change.

All right. All right, mate.

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

We walked through the hotel.

You know, it was silent.

There was a car waiting.

I just told him to go. I said, just get in.

Oh, straight to country.

This 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 you 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?

What do you think you're here?

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 as soon as them words come out of his mouth, take drugs back to England.

I just lost it.

Clear the door, all right?

John says, you're in this country.

Nobody knows whereabouts you are in the country.

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

All of a sudden, they look huge.

I think I'll have to cut it out.

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

I'm going to bring them back. I'm going to put a kilo 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 have.

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

Don't try and leave the hotel.

It says, because you'll pay.

It says, 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,

because 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 won't get 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 old telephones 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 the bottle.

The cocaine in that bottle.

I thought, good God, you know, this has got to be amateur. I was putting drugs

in, you know, in a shampoo bottle.

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

what's in it.

And they said, eight bottles in each case.

And 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 you get to France, you 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.

What are you 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 crying, 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 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.

You know, 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 take off and get on the plane.

We walked to the queue, everybody else had been searched. Everybody, everybody

getting cases searched.

I look 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 sweating.

I'm sure that people could see, hear in my face.

And she just waves over.

Good 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.

Wildcats have never looked in bags or anything.

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

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 start 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, sit 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 that I think he'll dwell up like I am if I've got anything

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. Hi.

I want to come to sleep.

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?

I'm trying 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 my heart was going to come through my mouth.

I don't think that's it we caught. This guy's not stupid.

I could have just...

Bursting into tears.

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

over, in prison, in the category, and 20 years to look at that.

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

I couldn't take my eyes off what he was doing.

Every motion.

Everything he was doing.

Looked at me again, took a tissue, wiped it on.

I'd go.

I think everything's fine.

Take your bags, go through.

I've lived it.

I could have kissed the man, you know.

As we were 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

for your birthday for tonight.

I can remember waking up pretty early at night and stinking it out, 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 then, it's going to fall everybody.

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

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

You get an envelope with £8 ,000 in it.

We've been through all that turmoil, all the terror, all the pain.

If we don't deserve £8 ,000, 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 he said, let's just go the rest of the way home.

chop the bottles with them, pick up the cars 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 Lucia, we're heading to Waterloo.

I don't think I was even nervous.

I was acting more normal, teary, diamond hopping.

I think the nerves had 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 goddle.

Bags come 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

yeah.

Stood there five minutes.

One bag came round.

I think it was 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 Lucia. We've got two bags.

There's only one case.

When she got off the phone, she said, there's been a mistake. It's been left

the plane going to the next destination.

And she said, don't worry.

We will deliver it to your hotel.

Well, 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

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 hell's let loose.

They just appeared out of every door.

It was just absolutely pet spying.

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 the transportation of cocaine.

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

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

We fetched the case in, 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.

They took the standing knife out, cut the bottle open, pulled out a bag.

Panic, panic, panic.

They got a tester thing, and they put it, dabbed it.

It's a liquid cocaine.

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

I fetched a press in 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 all 30 40 50 kilos through hell all we were were

decoys nightmare absolute nightmare

they put

it both in the back of the van and the giant of the big thing god

It's awful.

We got to the prison gate.

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

They just 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, 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 this 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 life.

And they were shouting and booing, banging the door, banging and banging

smashing.

They were throwing fires out the window.

Burning cloths, burning doors.

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 were 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 out 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 treks 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

sliced.

I was terrified.

I'd been in there for weeks.

It was a Sunday afternoon.

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

It was blisteringly hot.

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

But I got the shirt off my head.

A guard smashed legs from underneath me.

And I fell down the stairs.

I hit my head.

I hit my back.

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

And I end 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 sheep from somewhere and threw it over me, you

They thought I was dead.

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

consciousness.

Three broken ribs, dislocated shoulder.

I need about 14 stitches in my head.

And the bottom two lumber disks had just exploded into nothing. No, they're 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 rumor that he'd

been attacked the prison guard told me that it 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.

That just seems about a 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 stuck 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 race.

I love you!

And just to hear a voice to shout, you know, I love you, just for that few

seconds 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 out.

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.

It was just like, come on, let's just get out of here, you know.

It's overwhelming for you.

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

The guys beyond just 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, yeah,

it's damaged me on repair.

Them 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 to death.

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

my instincts, you know, and just going to a situation that anybody can go into.

Believe me, it can happen to anybody.

It really can.

We did never once blame each other.

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

We'll always be soulmates, you know?

Always.