travelling-blogger

comments

They were meant to be dream holidays, but ended up providing lifelong memories for all the wrong reasons. 

What started out as a trip to a luxurious destination, with glamorous hotels, balcony views and stunning beaches were replaced by the bars of a prison cell for these terrified travellers.

From and husband and wife team forced at gunpoint into trafficking drugs in the Caribbean, to the soon-to-be parents jailed for 'adultery' and the gay man thrown in a 'concentration camp' jail in Morocco, their stories are a cautionary tale for anyone looking for a carefree holiday abroad. 

Scroll down for video 

What seems to good to be true often works out like that, as tourists have found to their detriment 

Caribbean Nightmare

Jayne Blaydon thought she had landed a dream job when she accepted an offer to teach lap dancing in a Caribbean nightclub. 

But soon after arriving in Guyana, she and her husband David were forced at gunpoint to smuggle multiple kilos of liquid cocaine back to England. 

They successfully get through two customs points before being arrested in Guadeloupe in 2003. Locked up in prison, David suffered physical attacks and was crippled before he and Jayne were finally released after almost two years. 

David and Jayne Blaydon were forced at gunpoint to smuggle drugs from Guyana to the UK

Banged up Abroad: Forced into Smuggling on National Geographic

Their horrendous experience were detailed on National Geographic's Banged Up Abroad.

The couple flew out and were met by Michael, who settled them into hotel accommodation and showed them around the resort, along with his accomplice, John.

But things took a turn for the worse a few days later.

'I was laid there just relaxing, and I could see John coming to the hotel pool area,' recounts David, who was 42 at the time.

'He looked serious, and he lent over and said, "I need you to go back to the hotel"'

'As he leant over, under his jacket, he had a gun.' 

A still from the Nat Geo episode Caribbean Nightmare, with actors playing the roles of David and Jayne Blaydon following their arrest in Guadeloupe

As the pair were led to their hotel room, panic set in as to what would happen next. The man who had met them after entering Guyana, Michael, was there, along with their 'security', John.

It was then that they were told there was no club, no dancing job, and instead they were recruited to ship drugs back to the UK.

They were trapped. The hotel had no other guests, leading David to believe the accommodation was set up as a place to recruit traffickers.

The next morning two brand new suitcases were delivered to the couple by the two African men. Inside the suitcases were shampoo bottles loaded with cocaine.

The route they would be forced to take was from Guyana, to St Lucia, St Martin, Guadeloupe, then France followed by a ferry to England. And at the end of the journey, they would be paid £8,000. 

They only made it as far as Guadeloupe before they were arrested after being let off the plane.  

'Within three days we had become international drug smugglers,' added David.

The actor playing David Blaydon in the re-enactment shows horror after the drugs are discovered

They were then taken to one of the country's most notorious prisons.

'When I opened the door, you've never heard anything like it in your life,' said David.

'They were shouting abuse, banging the doors, banging, and banging and smashing. They were throwing fire out of the window, burning cloths , burning rubbish. '

One of the security officials then turned round to David with a chilling message.

'English man, you will be dead in two weeks.'

While Jayne, then aged 34, described her cell as clean and 'not bad' things were very different for David.

He describes how he feared for his life every day and witnessed somebody getting stabbed or slashed daily.

Just two weeks into his prison stay, David tells how he was attacked from behind by a guard that sent him crashing down a flight of stairs.

A white sheet was thrown over him, and he was presumed dead.

After being taken to the infirmary, while drifting in and out of consciousness, his injuries were broken ribs, two shattered discs in his back, and he needed 16 stitches in his head. 

The couple spent two years in prison before they were released in 2005. To this day David has limited mobility due to the prison attack and says he will eventually be in a wheelchair. 

Prisoner of love

David Scott couldn't have been happier when he met Cynthia, a pretty Filipino woman, online back in 2008.

After a holiday together in the Philippines the British man was delighted when she became pregnant but their joy turned to despair when Cynthia's estranged husband started making trouble. 

Under the Philippines' adultery laws he had them thrown in jail and the couple faced up to 14 years in prison. Worse still, they discovered under local laws their baby legally belonged to her ex-husband and it was up to him what he wanted to do with her. 

With time and money running out they decided to go on the run and escape to Thailand. It was risky plan. Cynthia was jumping bail and if she had been caught it would have meant even more trouble.

David Scott tells the story of how he met a Filipino woman online and after the pair became pregnant, they were forced to flee the Philippines after being charged with adultery

When David was stopped at customs they thought the game was up but it turned out to be a problem with his visa and once they had paid the excess fee, they were able to fly to safety.

Finally, after months of worry, David Scott arrived back home in Swindon with his baby girl, Janina, and Cynthia.

'I had an amazing time, and definitely fell in love with Cynthia', said David of his first meeting with his partner.

'It would be different if she was still with her husband, but I knew they were long split up. In my eyes she was single, so she was quite capable of dating who she wanted.'

After returning home to the UK after finding out his father was ill (he eventually passed away), Cynthia contacted David to tell him she was pregnant.

It was then the problems started.

David flew out to see Cynthia, but a few weeks later they were sent a letter that her ex-husband had filed a charge of adultery against the court.

The episode broadcast on Nat Geo told how the couple were forced to share a dirty cell with rats (posed by actors)

There was evidence, none more so than the fact Cynthia was pregnant. In the Catholic country a prison sentence for such behavior was guaranteed.

'The only thing I'd done wrong was falling in love with a woman and getting her pregnant, and I'm proud of that,' added David. 

The couple were moved into a police station cell among murderers, rapists, child molesters. 

After four days in a cramped cell full of rats, they were taken to a judge where David was released, but Cynthia was forced to pay bail for temporary release.

After they were warned they would both be expected to end up in jail, the couple decided on their escape route.

'I was never tempted for a second to leave her,' added David. 'Not for a second.' 

Hooked in Havana

When Kahlilah Saleem, aged 22, met big-shot music producer Roy her life was completely transformed. 

She moved from Philadelphia to Miami with her six-year-old daughter. But when Roy offered Kahlilah the chance to travel to Panama to see the Carnival in 1999, her hopes were turned upside-down. 

Roy abandoned Kahlilah in Panama with a bag stuffed with 8kg of pure cocaine. He returned to the US and held her daughter hostage, forcing Kahlilah to smuggle the bag to Paris. 

A model plays the part of Kahlila Saleem, who was forced to transport drugs in order to see her daughter

But it was no easy journey. Kahlilah was told to travel from Panama to Costa Rica and then to Cuba. 

Along the way she made friends with English backpacker Laura who was also travelling to Paris. 

But just before they were about to board their final flight together Kahlilah discovered Laura's secret - she was also a drug mule. 

Laura made it onto the plane but Kahlilah paid the price. She was pulled aside and caught with the drugs. After six years in prison in Cuba, Kahlilah was finally reunited with her daughter.

Describing on how she wanted to move up in her life, Kahlilah said: 'We all went through hard times, hard times were normal. I needed money for myself, my daughter.

'I guess I was willing to do what was necessary as long as it was legal.' 

Kahlilah described how one day in a room in Panama, Roy told her that he had to leave immediately but that she could stay in Panama.

'Listen, when you come to meet me in Paris, I need you to come and bring this bag with you,' he told her. 

The realisation hits Kahlilah of an expected jail term when the security officials find drugs in the lining of the holdall (scene from the reconstruction shown on Nat Geo)

On the final leg after transporting the bag, Kahlilah was picked out of the security line at Cuba Airport, and it was then she was made to empty the bag and the drugs were discovered in the lining of the holdall.

'You're facing 15 to 30 years,' she was told by the security official.

That was in fact six years. But Kahlilah, who described the prison as 'horrific,' received the news that her daughter was safe with her mother, and that Roy had gone on the run.

'I coped by remembering my happy moments at home, and also my daughter.

'Prison made me grateful for the small things people take for granted everyday, family and the importance of having necessities.

'The biggest lesson I learnt is freedom is priceless.' 

Ray Cole, 70, was imprisoned for four months in Morocco after homosexual images were found on his phone

Jailed in Morocco for being gay

Ray Cole, 70, was imprisoned for four months with his Moroccan friend Jamal Jam Wald Nass after homosexual images were found on his phone.

The pair were left languishing in a crowded Marrakech jail described as a 'concentration camp', but were eventually granted a conditional release. 

In a Facebook message to his supporters, Mr Cole, from Deal, Kent, said after his release: 'Happy though I am for this, it doesn't take away the memory of the appalling treatment in the police station and the frightening conditions in the prison.

'The overwhelming feeling of fear and isolation will stay with me for the rest of my life, I think.

'Even though I was held for just three weeks, at the time I had no idea of when I would get out and see my loved ones again. It seemed like an eternity, and all for what? Nothing!

'Just because I'm a gay man. And because they could! There are no winners. Morocco's reputation as a safe holiday destination was shattered and inquiries dropped by around 50 per cent, although it will recover.

'And it cost me in the region of £7,000 personally. So that's my travelling days finished! So I'm happy that it's all over, but sorry that the Moroccan authorities haven't yet offered any apology or compensation.

'I'm not holding my breath.'

Mr Cole spent four months in squalid conditions of this prison in Marrakech, Morocco

The case generated huge interest on social media from supporters who urged the Moroccan authorities to free retired Mr Cole.

As well as a petition, a Free Ray Cole hashtag circulated on Twitter and a Facebook page was set up calling for the release of Mr Cole, who has a minor heart condition.

He struck up a friendship with Mr Nass, who is in his 20s, on Facebook. It was on Mr Cole's second visit to Morocco to see him that they were detained at a bus stop by officers.

Mr Cole was four weeks into a five-week break in the north African country when the pair were held on September 18.

Confusion initially reigned over where he was being held until he was eventually tracked down.

On October 2 his family received a phone call telling them the pair had been jailed for four months. They had feared a six-month jail term as a worst-case scenario.

He was kept in a cell intended for 44 men which was holding 60, forcing Mr Cole to sleep on the ground and live with dangerous prisoners.

Donald MacNeil was tricked into skippering a yacht for a drug delivery in Venezuela

A journey to hell

Scot Donald MacNeil was a law-abiding sailing instructor in the north of England when he was hired to skipper a yacht across the Mediterranean, a holiday with a difference. 

The pay was good and the work was easy – or so he thought. 

But what he didn't know was that the crew was on their way to Venezuela to collect one of the biggest shipments of cocaine ever bound for the UK.

In too deep and at the mercy of dangerous gangsters, MacNeil knew refusal to sail wasn't an option but when the operation was bungled and the crew was caught red-handed by the Venezuelan National Guard, his pleas of innocence fell on deaf ears and he was sent to the notorious island prison of San Antonio – one of the worst jails on Earth.

Beaten and stripped of identity, confidence and self-respect, his moral compass was the only thing of value he had left in a place where hundreds are killed and thousands maimed every year in riots, vendettas and petty disputes. 

Thrown into a filthy, overcrowded cell and surrounded by armed gangs and crack addicts, he faced a daily fight to stay alive.

Through it all, and despite witnessing the brutal slaying of his close friend and mentor, MacNeil clung to the belief that one day he would be home. 

He documented his experiences ende dup writing an account of his treatment in jail in a memoir entitled MacNeil's Journey To Hell.

Caribbean Nightmare, will be shown on Friday, June 19 at 10pm on National Geographic Channel and Nightmare In Somalia will be broadcast on June 26 at 10pm.