Original subtitles

The girls were prostitutes, but that didn't shock me.

It basically was slave trade.

I was being let into some deeper, secret area of this syndicate.

It's my life, my freedom for smuggling heroin.

Why didn't I back out when I had the chance?

Why didn't I back out?

I'd grown up in Melbourne. I had an average middle -class upbringing, but

conservative parents who were quite religious.

Other than that, it was pretty normal.

I'd always had a sense of adventure.

So I'd come to Bangkok to try my luck at teaching English.

I was 28 and ready for a big change.

I fell in love with the city pretty much immediately.

It was just so many different things.

There's whole families on motorcycles zipping past you.

It's just like an explosion for the senses.

It's fantastic.

It's so different from a city like Melbourne.

working at a small school in a slum area of Bangkok.

The money wasn't great, but I used it for the experience.

I found it a lot of fun.

The interaction with the kids, seeing the smiles on their faces, that was the

most enjoyable part about teaching.

Bangkok at night is a kaleidoscope of colour.

The city does come alive.

There were a lot of expats that were living there.

And we used to frequent the red light districts where there was a lot of bars.

There's a lot of pretty girls.

It's a seedy scene, but we weren't looking at it like that.

We were whisked away into this fantasy world and we loved it, whether it was

right or wrong.

It boosted our egos enormously to have all this attention paid to us by all

these beautiful girls.

But it wasn't ideal for the type of salary I was earning.

The bars and clubs are quite expensive and my lifestyle and salary didn't match

up.

At the end of the summer, the work at the school was drying up.

I had no savings whatsoever.

And I was thinking, if I have to move back to Australia, my dream of living

working in Bangkok has become a complete failure.

I'd met up with my friend Rainer to do tarot card reading.

He was German. He was, I think, a little more experienced than he led on at the

beginning. I was telling him about my financial predicament.

He said there was this visa scam helping local girls get passports

to live in other countries.

We as expats would marry them, but the certificates were fake and that every

foreigner was doing it.

He said that it was low risk.

and you could make up to a thousand dollars for any one job.

I asked him what would happen

if I was caught and he said you'd be deported from the country that you were

flying into.

Worst case scenario was it was maybe a five -year sentence.

If I hadn't have been so broke I probably wouldn't have considered it at

I knew I was crossing a line, but it seemed to be a small risk.

So I told Rainer I'm willing to go ahead and do it.

That night, Rainer took me to meet an Australian guy, Rick, who owns a bar.

He worked with the Thai syndicate.

They were looking for your typical middle class.

clean -cut expat.

I was feeling excited and a little nervous as well because I didn't know if

was going to be suitable or whether I really wanted to go ahead and do it in

first place.

Rainer introduced me to Rick. He asked me if I was a cop.

I said obviously not.

I told Rick I'm ready to do it.

I was taken a bit aback that it was happening so fast, but it's Bangkok,

foreign, and it seemed okay, just go with the flow.

I was aware the girls were prostitutes, but that didn't shock me.

I thought at the time, naively, that the girls would be able to make more money,

but I realise now that the money was really going to the pimps.

I feel totally ashamed that I was involved in that type of thing.

But back then, it seemed everyone was doing it, so it wasn't unusual.

The next day, I got my first job.

I felt some trepidation, I guess.

I went to this house in the suburbs.

Hi, I'm Tim.

And the woman in charge introduced me to the girl that I would be supposedly

marrying. It was all very surreal.

She left us alone to work out a story in case we were asked any questions about

immigration.

She was a pretty sexy girl. I mean, she was easy on the eye and so

I had no problem there.

But it was just sort of very awkward. Why are we coming to Japan?

We spent a few hours rehearsing our story, how long we had known each other,

down to what the colour of the phone was. Because if you got something like

wrong, you would be found out.

When is your birthday?

Yeah, my birthday.

That afternoon

we went to the Japanese consulate.

We took our passports, we had a fake marriage certificate.

It was a long queue.

It was a little bit stressful.

There was a risk of being caught.

When we got to the top, I was more concentrating on what could go wrong.

And the girl, she just grabbed my arm and started showing me some affection.

And I sort of eased into the role.

They didn't look at us at all. It's like for them it was routine. They just took

the documents and we were on our way.

The next morning we flew to Japan and we headed for the immigration counter.

I thought this is the most serious part of this job. It's like we could get

caught here, something could go wrong.

We got to the counter, handed over our documents.

Everything was stamped and we were through.

It seemed so easy, it was incredible.

It felt fantastic.

I just said to the girl, we're on our honeymoon.

She laughed.

We got outside. We were met by a limo.

Okay, bye.

Bye.

They whisked the girl away and they handed me my money.

One minute we're married and on our honeymoon, the next minute I'm thinking,

well, I'll probably never see this girl ever again.

But I'm $1 ,000 up.

When I got back to Bangkok, I was in a fantastic mood.

And I headed straight for Rick's bar.

I felt pretty cool and cocky.

It seemed like I had girls at my beck and call.

Yes, I could do this. No problem.

It was easy.

After a few drinks, I got talking to this girl.

Her name was Nock and she was beautiful.

She had lovely eyes and lovely long flowing hair. We hit it off immediately.

Things never seemed better for me.

Over the next couple of months, I got some really good contracts teaching

English.

Knock and I spent a lot of time together.

My real dream was that we would get in an apartment together.

But I'd need to have the money for the deposit.

I kept in touch with Rick one night and he told me there were other job

opportunities coming up and it was even easier than doing trips to Japan.

We just had to take the flight to Hong Kong and just get the passport stamped

immigration. Better money.

I had thought that maybe I could just stick teaching English, but this seemed

too tempting to pass up. It was an opportunity for me to get the money to

our own apartment.

I said to Rick, fine, I can do this.

Yeah, I'm in.

Over the next

six months, I did three trips to Hong Kong.

It was easy and it was monkey business.

By the fourth trip I was pretty confident, even cocky.

The girl and I, we arrived at the immigration desk, we handed over our

and immediately there seemed to be a problem.

We didn't know what.

The immigration officer called in a colleague.

I was starting to get a little bit anxious.

We could be in some trouble.

Sorry, what's the problem?

Come with me. I've got a plane to catch, what's the problem?

Come with me, okay?

The officer took us off into different rooms to interrogate us.

Come and sit down.

They knew what we were up to and they wanted to catch us out. Can I have your

passport?

I was worried that the girl may blow her story and we could end up in jail for a

long time.

I figured I have to play this a certain way or I'm done for.

She has a problem with her passport.

Problem? I acted it out that, you know, as her fiancé, I need to know. You tell

me what the problem is. I don't think that she's your fiancé.

What? I had to convince this officer that what we were doing was totally

Where do you live? Bangkok. How long have you known each other?

I know him six months.

Six months. Why have you come to Hong Kong?

Because I'm a journalist.

I come to do research.

What kind of researching?

Chinese mysticism.

They asked the same questions over and over again for hours.

She

was

trying to wear me down, hoping that I would admit to what I was doing.

So I decided to up the ante a little bit. I started giving her veiled

And I said...

Would you or your family want to be treated if they came to Australia?

Would they be happy to be treated the same way at immigration?

Would you?

Okay, you wait here.

I was thinking, where the hell is this going?

The punishment for people smuggling can be five years in prison.

Suddenly the door opens, she comes in.

Oh my God, what's happening now?

Okay, Mr. Slater.

You're free to go.

It was a close call, but finally we did it.

We were walking away and I thought, I'm pretty good at this.

They can interrogate me, they can't break me. It's like, okay, this is my

now.

I knew I'd burned a bridge here, but there was plenty of other countries.

Okay, if something comes up in the future, I'm definitely available for

Back in Bangkok, a couple of weeks later, Raina called me and he wanted to

to me immediately.

He sounded serious, so I knew it would have something to do with the Thai

Syndicate.

I hopped on a motorcycle taxi.

I was feeling this is another adventure.

I get to Rainer's apartment.

Hey buddy, how are you?

His girlfriend's inside. He leads me out into the corridor and says we need to

talk under four eyes.

Yeah, no problem.

It was his way of saying that he wanted us to be talking alone.

He told me the syndicate was really impressed with the way I handled the

interrogation. And now they wanted me to meet an American guy, Bradley.

But this is no monkey business.

This is serious business.

I asked him, is it still drugs?

And he told me yes.

Is that a problem?

Now I'm thinking the risks are definitely huge.

But the money's going to be a hell of a lot better as well.

So it may not hurt to at least hear what they've got to say.

I can meet this guy. I mean, let's go that far.

I thought there's no harm in that at all.

Downtown, yeah?

I headed downtown on the bike.

I'm definitely feeling anxious because the level's gone up.

It's gone up 10 degrees.

In a weird way, I was feeling a little flattered. I was being led into some

deeper, secret area of this syndicate.

I walked up to this really nice, expensive hotel.

I went into the bar and waited for Bradley.

Bradley arrived ten minutes later.

He had this confident swag about him.

He looked businesslike.

He seemed to know exactly what he was about.

He suggested we go to dinner.

It was his treat. I thought, yeah, this is great.

Bradley insisted on ordering everything.

Looking back on it, it's like they're hooking you in.

Bradley said to me, you're one of us now.

This is a promotion.

He said the syndicate would like you to take some heroin into Los Angeles.

My first thoughts were the risks are high.

I knew in Thailand that I could get the death penalty for doing anything with

heroin.

especially smuggling.

So it's not a game anymore. It's like I'm playing with my life here.

And how much heroin? He said it would be between 4 and 8 kilos and that they

would pay me $10 ,000 and that I'd really only even be doing a half run.

You just got to check the bag in.

We got a guy in Los Angeles who picks it up for you. We got a 100 % track

record. No one had been busted. It was foolproof.

He said, we wouldn't offer it to you if we didn't think you could do it.

Look around, man.

Take a moment.

He had a silver tongue. He was very suave.

He knew what buttons to push.

He said, you can forget about your money problems. We'll pay you half them.

My mind's racing at this point because the offer's tempting, but is it worth

risking? my life, my freedom, for smuggling heroin.

I only suggested that I meet him at Rick's bar the next evening and give my

decision then.

My head was spinning. There was a million thoughts

racing through it.

One... Part of me saying I can do this, the other part saying not. You're

stupid. Back away.

I had no idea that I was walking into a huge trap.

None at all.

The next day, all I could think about was Bradley's proposal.

I can't believe that I even considered it.

It's madness.

It's absolutely insane.

It was someone different back then. It wasn't me.

I looked at it closely and I thought, it's a half run.

Once I've checked in the suitcase, I can forget about it.

It's actually pretty easy.

I convinced myself.

I can do it.

That evening I went to Rick's bar and I knew exactly what I was going to say.

Well, I'm in.

My heart was racing thinking, I'm in, but am I really ready?

The plan was that in two weeks' time I would check into a hotel with my

girlfriend.

The heroin would be delivered to me there, and then I would take the flight

LA.

Bradley, true to his word, he gave me the money.

So you're in. You can't back out.

It's too late now.

I got back to my apartment.

The $5 ,000 was all there.

I was feeling great because I had money again.

But also there was this trepidation I'm doing something dangerous.

Hello? The first thing I did was I rang mum and told her that I would be home

for Christmas.

She hadn't seen me for a year so she was pretty excited.

Love you too.

Bye. Bye.

I felt a bit guilty.

I knew that mum would be absolutely horrified if she knew what I was doing.

As it got closer to the day, inwardly I was on edge.

But I was going to go through it even though I had doubts.

The night before I was due to leave.

I met up with Bradley and he ran through the procedure with me again.

It was getting very close to the time, so I was just a

lot more nervous, really concentrating on being focused on what I had to do.

After we'd finished, we took a tuk -tuk back to the hotel.

Bradley received a very quick phone call on his mobile.

All he said on it was, yeah, fine, and hung up.

We arrived at the car park.

It was quite dark.

This figure emerged from the shadows.

He acknowledged Bradley briefly.

He opened his boot, pulled out of it a suitcase.

I knew exactly what was being handed to him. They said, this is the suitcase

with the heroin in it.

We were in a public place, so we all were feeling tense.

No one wanted to hang around.

The Thai guy, that was it. He was gone in a moment.

Vanished.

We reached the entrance of the hotel.

Bradley put the suitcase down.

I picked it up and it felt heavy.

Okay, this is closer to eight kilos than Ford.

We got to the room.

Bradley unzipped the suitcase.

I saw the heroin.

I felt my heart fluttering.

It wasn't hidden at all.

It was just wrapped in towels.

Bradley assured me that the x -ray was not going to pick up on the bag anyway.

And he also had a backup plan.

The plan was simply that the suitcase would be padlocked.

Knock and I would kiss our goodbyes.

She would leave the airport.

And if they wanted to open the bag.

Open your bag, please.

I'm to act surprised and say, oh, my girlfriend must have the key.

One second. Yes, okay.

And I can just duck out of the airport and be gone just like that.

In a flash.

Hit the road. Don't turn back.

I wasn't 100 % convinced, but I didn't want to make a fuss.

Because he might be thinking I'm a bit of a whiner.

Don't worry.

Everything's going to be fine.

I just wanted to get the heroin out of sight of anybody.

My heart was racing.

But I knew I'd gone past that point of no return, so it was game on,

I did a tarot reading to calm myself down.

I turned over a knight of wands, which meant an outside person was cunning and

deceitful.

My intuition thought of Bradley, but my conscious mind buried that immediately,

saying, no, I cannot be thinking this at this stage. It's too late anyway.

If only I'd trusted my instincts, my life would have turned out completely

differently.

I had a restless night before, and the next morning I had an unexpected phone

call, and it was Bradley.

Bradley, hello.

He said if I decided not to go ahead with it and do a runner, I should at

let him know beforehand.

And I thought that was very strange.

Don't worry about it. I said everything's fine.

The call unsettled me.

But in years to come, it actually did make sense.

Late that afternoon, I dressed up smart casual.

To remain anonymous, that's the key, just to blend in with the crowd.

Rainer had given me some Valium to take to ease my nerves, just to calm me down.

We took a cab and headed for the airport.

Nock and I we weren't in any conversation.

I was clearly focused on the backup plan

Cabs heading down the highway

and then suddenly We went straight off the back of a motorcyclist This

is like the last thing needed to happen

The two of them start getting into an argument about who's at fault here.

And I'm thinking, God, this is... I just don't need this.

This is an attention -seeking drama.

I was concerned the policemen would rock up and I had this suitcase of heroin

sitting right next to me in the back of the cab.

I was worried that I was going to miss the flight.

So I just...

Half stepped out of the cab, I was just getting angry at that point.

Cab driver eventually handed over some money to him and we were on our way

again.

It was definitely an omen.

I should have abandoned the mission then and there.

When we arrived at the airport, everything seemed so rushed, probably

was panicking.

The backup plan virtually went out the window.

My focus wasn't so much on whether they're going to pick up the heroin.

I'm more stressed out because I'm going to miss a flight.

But I did manage to sneak a peek at the two guys watching their monitors.

There was no reaction from them. The bag went through x -ray and it got tagged.

I thought, fine, it's situation getting back to normal again.

I just have to take it in to check in now and I'm thinking, OK, I can relax a

little bit more now. I don't have to stress out as much.

I go up to the counter.

The guy at the check -in counter tells me the flight's closed.

And I'm like, oh, my God.

Come on, just let me through.

I've just missed it. He won't let me on. I'm pleading with him, can you please

let me on? You know, it's only a few minutes, but no, they're following their

official procedure.

So I asked him, can I book another flight?

And he pointed upstairs.

The next problem was, what do I do with the bag?

I'm thinking, I don't want to carry the suitcase back out of the security area

again.

I spotted a security guard to my left.

It was just a very instantaneous decision.

So I went over to him. I said, can you look after this while I go and have a

ticket? Yeah? I must have been insane handing a suitcase of heroin to a

guard. But it had been tagged. It was secured.

So there's no reason for them to suspect me.

The early flight was the same time the following evening. So that was my best

option. Hey, Bradley. I rang Bradley and he was absolutely furious.

Are you kidding me?

I calmed him down by saying, look, everything's fine.

I've rebooked for the following evening. Yeah, I'm sorry.

But he definitely was furious.

As I left the airport, I was thinking I missed the flight, but as far as the

heroin in the suitcase, no one knows I've got it.

And that was the best feeling that I had that night.

I was quite confident the next evening was going to be a walk in the park.

When we got to the airport the next afternoon, everything was calm.

I said my goodbyes to Nok very openly and visibly.

I'd placed my bag on the x -ray belt.

There was no reaction from the guys watching the monitor.

I'm pretty relaxed, thinking, yeah, it's situation normal. The bag gets tagged

again.

I'll just stroll in to check in, you know, very calm, collected.

No problem.

I was early, so it seemed relatively empty.

So I just walk straight up to the check -in counter.

I'm thinking everything's normal, but just all of a sudden it seems like he's

taking a little bit longer than normal.

I'm waiting, waiting for a bag to go down the belt, but it's sitting there.

Nothing's happening.

I'm starting to get a little bit, what's going on here?

Why is he taking so long?

The next thing I notice is this Asian guy.

He comes up to me and he asks politely, Can I see your passport?

Just the way he conducted himself sent alarm bells ringing in my head. I

couldn't put my finger on it, but it felt bad. It felt really bad.

I was trying to be as calm and collected as possible. Inside, my heart's racing.

I was just trying to stand there and act as innocent, as though I'm not doing

anything.

Then I saw another Asian guy appear from behind security screen, and he said,

excuse me, sir. The moment I heard his American accent,

my heart stopped. My throat went dry.

I just thought, I'm... A million thoughts

raced through my head.

What have I done wrong?

I was well aware there was a huge American drug authorities presence in

Thailand. I thought there's no point trying to play cute with these guys. So

meekly said, it's my bag.

Are you all right?

Your hands are shaking.

I just want to shrink into the floor and disappear.

Can you come with me, sir?

I just slipped into shock.

I'm busted. I'm in their hands.

I'm thinking, this is it. It's over.

My life has ended.

I knew it's just a matter of time before they find the heroin.

The American guy introduced himself saying he was from the American drug

authorities.

That was like the knife going in the heart. I knew this is huge.

I'm in deep, deep trouble, and there's no way out.

I responded, I don't have it.

He produced a Stanley knife and cut open the top section of the bag and then

exposed the big block of heroin that was wrapped in towels.

I didn't want to see it.

I knew it was there.

There's nothing else I can do.

Everything felt to me like it was in slow motion. There was more people

into the room, obviously, to witness this, but I had this deep thinking

inside that it's going worse, worse, worse.

It's like I'm on this rollercoaster ride and it's going all the way downhill.

I sweat.

The American guy said there's a lot of heroin here Ten and

a half kilos It was two and a half kilos more than I was supposed to carry and

that was to me a shock I couldn't fathom why that had happened. Maybe their

scales could be wrong. Maybe Bradley had miscalculated

I knew in Thailand that you only needed 100 grams to get the death penalty

anyway, but 10 .5 kilos, that's like a huge amount.

I'm just thinking it's just going totally, totally spiralling out of

control for me.

I felt like I was there in a nightmare, and I'm the central figure of it.

The American cut away one bag, took a small amount out.

Tested it.

My last hope is it's baking soda or something.

But not.

This is really good quality, Mr. Schrader.

Okay.

Yeah.

They placed handcuffs on me.

It's a terrible feeling. My freedom is gone.

As we drove to the narcotics headquarters, I'm feeling the most

earth.

Everything seemed so surreal, unreal. I mean, to think about a death penalty, I

didn't even know how they did it.

I knew my parents would be absolutely mortified.

Why didn't I back out when I had the chance?

Why didn't I back out?

Yeah.

It was probably around midnight that I would have arrived at the headquarters.

There were two Australian Federal Police officers waiting for me because I was

an Australian citizen.

And the first comment one of them made is that, You've been a very busy boy,

Tim.

They asked for a statement.

Start writing, Tim.

I just clammed up. I didn't want to say anything.

I gave them an absolute piece of fiction.

And I remember one of them commenting, saying, this is absolute frog, which it

was. This is garbage, Tim.

Give it some names, mate.

They pressed a little bit for names, but not to an extent I would have thought

them. And then one of them commented, he said, well, we knew you were coming.

I'm like, how the hell do they know that?

How do you know I was coming?

Are they just playing with me?

They can see I'm in enough anguish, shock.

Is it a ploy to get me to talk, or had I been set up?

Is it Bradley? Is it Rainer? Is it Rick? Is it not?

They told me that the Thai customs officials were holding a press

and I was horrified to think that I'm going to be paraded in front of the

but I had no choice in the matter.

behind bars in Bangkok after he was arrested for allegedly trying to board a

flight to America carrying more than 10 and a half kilos of heroin.

I just sat there like the dumb idiot that I looked.

There were 17 numbered bags.

It looked a huge amount of heroin.

I was in shock.

The whole world's watching me.

It was so humiliating.

My family are going to see this. It's going to break their hearts.

After the press conference had finished, I just broke down and cried like a

baby.

I was crying for me, for my parents.

I don't think I could ever forgive myself for the impact that it's had on

family. From when they found out, they went through it day by day as much as I

did.

So...

Probably harder for them than it was for me.

Yeah, really sorry about it. Put them through that.

I was taken to a holding cell.

There was no windows, so there's no way I could determine whether it was even

day or night.

It was like you had been put in a hole in the ground.

This was just the very beginning of a journey into hell.

My spirit sunk so low.

I felt like the lowest, vilest creature that existed.

I was reduced to nothing. That's how small I had become. I'd gone from this

cocky, arrogant guy.

Oh yeah, an airport's my office. Yeah, get real.

How stupid.

The first people to visit me was a representative from the Australian

Are you holding up?

She told me that I was in huge trouble, that the death penalty was mandatory in

Thailand, but if I pleaded guilty... Then there's a really good chance that

sentence will be commuted to life imprisonment.

That really didn't make me feel any better at all.

I didn't feel I had the strength to go another day, let alone life.

I was taken to Bangkwan Central Prison, the largest prison in Thailand.

It's basically for anybody who's got a life sentence, death sentence.

And nobody's going home.

It's a depressing place.

It's massively overcrowded. It's putrid. It's dirty.

Disease is rife.

It's like being in this bizarre, mad village that you cannot get out of.

This is it.

Ban Kwan is now my home.

I was still trying to work out what had actually happened, whether I was set up.

One day a prisoner told me that Bradley had been arrested a few months ago and

that he had struck a deal with the drug authorities to become an undercover

informant for them.

He was saying, yep, you've been set up.

It dawned on me that Bradley had instigated the biggest bust of the year

Australian in Thailand.

Everything started to make sense.

From the phone call about doing the runner.

Ten and a half kilos.

The amount of heroin in the suitcase was two and a half kilos more than said it

would be.

The police saying, yeah, we knew you were coming.

It all came together, thinking, yep.

He betrayed me.

He sucked me in all the way.

And I didn't see it, or I chose not to see it.

I knew I was an idiot, but I can't feel that sorry for myself. I deserved what I

got. I knew what I was doing.

The conditions in Bang Kuang prison are horrific.

The guards were extremely corrupt.

It was easier to score heroin on credit than it was to actually buy food.

I was offered heroin and I accepted it.

That was a stupid thing to do, but it numbed the pain hugely.

It helped you pass the days, the weeks, the months.

But heroin is such a powerful, addictive, evil drug.

After snorting it for a while, it's just the effect is not enough.

So the next process was to shoot it up.

Sharing needles was a commonplace occurrence.

HIV was rife.

It's crazy, yeah. It's playing Russian roulette.

I might as well have had a gun and spun the barrel and, you know, pointed it at

my head.

Life sentence, I'm not getting out. So it's like, who cares? I don't.

In a way, I guess it was a weird sense of justice.

I was originally smuggling heroin and now I've become a heroin addict. So the

tables have completely turned.

I used heroin for two years.

Eventually a friend convinced me to get a HIV test.

The test was positive.

I was devastated.

But I knew I'd been taking huge risks and I was paying for my own stupidity.

It was a severe slap in the face, wake up call.

I didn't want to end up like this.

A prison junkie and dying in the prison.

My mum decided to visit.

I didn't really want her to come, but she was determined.

It's great to see her walking in.

She burst into tears, but I could still see she was happy to see me.

It felt good to hug her.

But I couldn't dream of picking a worse situation for her to see me in.

She was wonderful. She just said, keep positive, keep thinking that one day

you're going to get out.

Don't give up. Don't despair.

It was something to hold on to.

It made me a stronger, better person.

I thought, I'm not going to let the prison beat me. I'm not going to let

disease beat me.

I gave up heroin.

I decided to change my whole attitude and hopefully one day get out.

My health started to deteriorate, which was just a matter of time.

My mum was tireless in her campaigning. She was in constant contact with

officials in Australia to get them to support.

my application for a royal pardon.

He needs medical help urgently.

Her mission was to get me out and to get me out alive.

I think it's the best day of my life for sure.

I was almost at death's door, but I knew I'd got this far.

I'm going to get home.

I'm indebted to my mum, to her perseverance, to her courage.

It's just a mother's love for her son. That's what got me out.

After I was released, I'd heard that Bradley was found dead in the Red Light

District of Bangkok from a heroin overdose.

I knew that he'd been bumped off.

He got the death sentence, not me.

It's been 12 years since I was released from prison.

Since then, I'd channeled a lot of my energies into getting better.

I regret what I did.

I was totally stupid.

The only thing I can do is try and live as good a life as I can now and show to

people that, you know, I'm a changed person.

I think I'm extremely lucky to be given a second chance to live.

I cherish every day that I'm alive, so why not? It's fantastic.