Tuesday 8 May 2007

A friend in Thai prison

Hi all,

Here's a post that's not weather related, or maybe if one wants to include it into the Thai political climate.

It's about an old friend of mine, Crispin Paton-Smith who I know since I came to Samui 8 years ago now. At the time we worked both for the same dive shop and we shared the dive deck on the boat more than just a few times.

He started his own dive shop at some stage and he has been very successful with his enterprise.

About nine months ago he was arrested on a wide array of charges of which only two very minor charges remain for which normally bail is granted. However, not in Crispin's case.

In my opinion, he's just guilty by association (of being a member of a motorbike club) and he needs our support.

Please have a look at this website, dedicated to him and his case and I leave it up to you to do what you feel is right.

http://www.crispin-paton-smith.com/

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Camille - I think I remember you mentioning this guy to me, maybe even while I was in Thailand myself. Doesn't sound too good with him - any idea if and when he's going to appear in court? Hopefully things will work out for him. I know the laws are pretty strict in that part of Asia but I will hope common sense and justice will prevail.

Incidentally, have you registered your site with Technorati? It might just get you some more visitors, especially if you use tags to categorize your posts. Just trying to pass on some good advice:)

Camille Lemmens said...

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your interest, on behalf of Crispin.

I may well have mentioned him, it was a very hot topic at the time being and that's what some friends of him try to revive, in a positive way with people actually supporting him rather than argue-ing and judging him (not easy maybe for some people).

He's appeared in court a few times already but his case gets extended on minor technicalities and thee's no bail granted, which normally should've been granted a while ago already.
It looks like common sense and justice may exactly be what is missing here. Sad but true, so far.

Thanks for the Technorati tip, it's appreciated and I will look into it.