A BRITISH tourist who spent three weeks in a crowded Phuket prison after immigration
officials challenged his topless passport picture, says despite his ‘nightmare ordeal’, his Phuket holiday was one of the best holidays he has ever had.

Martial arts expert, Simon Burrowes, 44, was jailed after immigration officers accused him of having a false passport and swearing at them.

He is now out of prison on bail, his passport has been confiscated, and he is facing a further year in jail if he is convicted when he appears in court next month.

Burrowes’ nightmare began on January 31 as he headed home after a three week working holiday in Phuket helping train British kick boxing champion Matthew Nagle at the Tiger Muay Thai camp in Chalong.

“Our flight was due to leave at 12.30am, and after we checked in our baggage, we headed straight to the immigration desk and handed over our passports,” he said.

“A lady immigration officer examined Matthew’s passport and waved him through, but when she looked at my passport, she called over two more immigration officials and told me to sit on a chair behind the immigration counter while they examined it with a magnifying glass.

“Then a lady in a purple jacket, who I now know was the supervisor, joined them and started making phone calls.

“This went on for about an hour, but I was pretty calm because I have been hassled at airports before by officials who suspected I was a drug runner because I am black.

“Five minutes before our plane was due to take off, one of the immigration officers told us we were not authorized to board it.

“Then about five airline staff came running down asking for our baggage numbers.

“I was then told I would not be allowed to board the plane, but Matthew’s passport had been approved and he was free to go.

“Matthew gave me his credit card, and boarded the plane.”

Burrowes said he demanded to speak to a senior official or a policeman,
but his request was ignored.

“I asked the officials for their names and ID numbers, but they refused to tell me,” he said.

“I was frustrated and angry and I said to them ‘Do you think I’m a f…..ing idiot.’

“I then walked away and tried to find a senior official.”

“It has been reported in the press that because I am a Brit, I was arrogant, and because I didn’t get what I wanted in seconds, I started swearing.

“This is not true, and I only reacted the way I did was because I was frustrated, I had missed my flight and had been treated badly for more than two hours.”

Burrowes said he went looking for a police officer, and when he returned to the immigration desk, the supervisor was still studying his passport.

“I asked her to run my passport through the computer to prove it was genuine, and she told me it was already being checked,” he said.

“I never, at any stage, said anything negative about Thailand or the Thai people.

“For the past three weeks, I had been sending messages to my family and friends telling them what a great place Phuket was.

“To be falsely accused of making derogatory comments about Thailand is a low blow, and certainly not true,” he said.

“But I wanted my passport back, so when the supervisor turned her back on me, I snatched it out of her hands and tried to leave the airport.

“Just outside the main doors, I started shouting ‘is there a policeman or official here’.

“A policeman took me to his office and interrogated me for about two hours.

“He said my passport was suspicious because the border around the picture wasn’t straight, and that the writing was printed in the wrong font.

“At 3.40am, I was arrested for possession of a false passport and taken to a police station and put straight into a cell.”

“The following morning, I was given tea and food, and questioned by an officer who said he was dealing with my case.

“I told him I was from London and that I was 44, and he accused me of lying.

He said there were holes in my story because I had left countries without having my passport stamped.

“He later apologized to me when he discovered that when British nationals leave the UK, their passports aren’t stamped.”

Burrowes said a British consular official phoned him from Bangkok and told him his passport didn’t exist in the system, and that his visa numbers did not match.

Burrowes said his passport was issued by the British embassy in Canberra, Australia, in 2000.

“I lost my passport when I was in Australia, and when I applied for a new one, I gave them an old photo I had of myself because I was trying to save the cost of having a new photo taken,” he said.

“I was shirtless, but you could only see the top of my shoulders.

“If it wasn’t ok, the embassy in Australia shouldn’t have let me use it as a passport picture.”

Burrowes said he started getting ‘very scared’ when the British embassy told the Thai police his passport didn’t exist, and that he was going to jail.

“The next morning I was handcuffed to a local Thai and taken to the court and put into holding cells.

“I was asked if I could put up bail of 100,000 baht, and when I said I couldn’t, they took me to the main jail.”

Burrowes said he had never been in a prison before and was terrified about being in jail.

He said he stayed close to the other foreign prisoners while he was in the prison.

“When I arrived at the jail, an official told me to take shorts, and tee shirts from my bag, and one of the farang prisoners yelled out to me to take three or four, which turned out to be good advice,” he said.

Burrowes said he was put in a cell with more than 120 other prisoners who were fed mainly rice and jam.

He said prison life was ‘hell’, and the prisoners often played nasty ‘jokes’ on each other.

“One day I came back from the toilets, and my sandals were missing,” he said.

“I found them in a gutter covered in urine, spit and other foul stuff.”

Burrowes said he was told after 11 days in the prison that his passport had been verified, but he wasn’t released until another 10 days had passed.

After spending three weeks in prison, he was given back his belongings, but not his passport, and released.

“My lawyer met me outside and drove me to a nearby café and bought me a beer,” he said.

“I don’t normally drink, but that glass of beer with ice in it was pure heaven.

“Then he gave me a plate of chicken, and I wolfed it down.

“It felt so good to be out of jail and free again.”

Burrowes said the ordeal had cost him more than 3000 pounds, his job, and his flat back in London, but it hadn’t put him off Thailand.

“When I was in jail, I vowed many times never to return, but to be honest, the great people I met and the experiences I had before all this happened, made this one of the best trips I’ve ever had.”

“It’s just so sad that all this happened,” he said.

“I’ll be back again.”

The Director General of Immigration at Phuket International Airport, Suksopon Maneeson said Phuket ‘didn’t need bad tourists like this’.

He said he had a voice recording of the entire incident which clearly showed that Burrowes had verbally abused his staff.

The recording would be used as evidence in court, he said.

“The man’s passport had a photograph in which he was not wearing clothes, which made our officials questions whether it was genuine,” he said.

Khun Suksoporn said Burrowes was shirtless in the passport photograph, and he was not looking at the camera.

He said the standard of Burrowe’s passport was below the standards of that of even Laos and Cambodia.

In Thailand, official documents such as passports, ID cards or driver’s licenses, Thais must wear shirts which cover their shoulders.

He said Burrow’s became angry when questioned, and snatched his passport back from an immigration official.

“He then said ‘f--- you’ and criticised Thailand in an offensive way,” he said.

“I love Thailand and I don’t want people coming here and looking down on Thailand or speaking badly about Thailand and to Thai people,” he said.

Khun Suksoporn said this was the first time a tourist had been jailed in Phuket for arguing with immigration officials.

A senior police official said under Thai law, government officials were protected while on duty, and if someone abused or threatened them, they could be jailed for up to one year.

A spokesman for the British embassy in Bangkok said Burrowes’ passport had now been verified as genuine and that Thai authorities had dropped the charge of possession of a false passport.

But he still has to answer the charge of abusing a government official.

Phuket’s honorary British consul, Martin Carpenter, said consular officials had done everything they could for Burrowes.

Mr Carpenter said he visited Burrowes in prison as soon as he was informed of his arrest.

“We visited him and provided normal consular services to him, giving him advice and helping him contact his family,” he said.

“We don’t issue passports at the consular section, and I can’t comment on Mr Burrowes’ case without his permission.”

Burrowes is due to appear in court on April 27.