A young British woman is in a ‘living hell’ after being jailed for 25 years in Dubai after being caught with a huge stash of cocaine, her mother has said.
Mia O’Brien, 23, of Huyton, Merseyside, has been given a life sentence after being caught with 50 grams of the Class A drugs in the Middle East in October.
The Liverpool University law student pleaded not guilty to drug offences in court but was convicted by a judge after just a day-long hearing on July 25.
Mia was also fined £100,000 by the court. The amount of cocaine she was found with – 50 grams- has an estimated street value of around £2,500 in the UK.
The pretty blonde is now languishing in a cell in Dubai Central Prison with six other inmates – mainly Nigerian criminals.
Her mother Danielle McKenna, 46, told the Daily Mail: ‘She is absolutely devastated.
‘Mia feels she has destroyed her life as she wanted to be a lawyer or solicitor.
‘I speak to her but she can’t say too much on the phone.
Mia O’Brien, 23, of Huyton, Merseyside, has been jailed for 25 years in Dubai after being caught with a huge stash of cocaine
Ms O’Brien’s mother, Danielle McKenna (right) is appealing for help and previously launched a fundraising page in her daughter’s name
Ms O’Brien, 23, of Huyton, Merseyside, was caught with 50 grams of the Class A drugs in the Middle East in October
‘She’s just made a stupid mistake after going over to see a friend and her boyfriend in Dubai.
‘But she paid for her own flight as she had a bit of savings. No one paid for her flight so she’s not one of these wannabe influencers.
‘I don’t think she was asked to bring anything back. She was caught with cocaine in an apartment.
‘It was about 50 grams and there were two other people – her friend included. They have been charged with drug dealing.
‘I don’t know whether the friend’s boyfriend was a drug dealer but I feel he has a lot to answer for.’
The mother-of-five added: ‘She pleaded not guilty – they don’t have a just trial over there.
‘She was just given a life sentence and has to serve 25 years. The trial was all in Arabic and Mia was told of the sentence later by her lawyer.
‘She is absolutely devastated by what has happened. Mia is being really strong but I know she is going through a living hell.
The pretty blonde is now languishing in a cell in Dubai Central Prison with six other inmates – mainly Nigerian criminals
Pictured: Dubai’s Central Prison where he 23-year-old is being held
The Liverpool University law student pleaded not guilty to drug offences in court but was convicted by a judge after just a day-long hearing on July 25
‘The prison conditions are horrendous. There are no staff really and she has to bang on a big door if she needs anything.
‘She’s seen fights and said she has been really scared.
‘Mia said she has to sleep on a mattress on the floor and shares the cell with six others.
‘But she’s not been ill – she has just come out in a few rashes.’
Dubai’s Central Prison is notorious for its brutal conditions, with inmates packed into overcrowded cells, tortured for confessions.
Rape is an ‘every day occurrence’ in the jail, according to a report from last year, with violent assaults carried out both by inmates and guards.
Several people share beds at a time, with as many as 20 people sharing cells designed for three or four people.
Dannielle continued: ‘She was crying on the phone and saying: “Oh mum – please forgive me” and was trying to forgive me.
‘I was just so shocked and heartbroken as she’s never done anything like that.
‘She’s never been in trouble and is not a drug taker.
‘I don’t know what has happened but she is old enough to make her own mind up.
‘I definitely don’t think she was going to sell the drugs or bring them back.
‘It’s a lot of drugs but there are others involved and she has just been caught up in it.’
Mia has not paid the court’s 500,000 dirham fine but is due to have an appeal in the next few weeks.
Ms O’Brien has not paid the court’s 500,000 dirham fine but is due to have an appeal in the next few weeks
Ms O’Brien is being held in the city’s central prison. Her mother set up a GoFundMe page to support her
Danielle said: ‘She said she hopes that she might get sent back to serve her sentence here after Ramadan when they might do clemency deals.
‘But she is devastated by what has happened.
‘We we were all shocked by the sentence she was given.
‘But Mia is being really brave about it but she really misses her two young brothers who are aged just five and seven.
‘She just wants to come home. I want her home too – she’s my only daughter.
‘I was so shocked when she told me what had happened – I would never had thought it in a million years.
‘She can’t wait to come home. She said the prison can be scary but she’s just trying to keep her head down.’
Danielle dismissed suggestions that her daughter had been caught up in a trap.
She said: ‘I think she is innocent and has been the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
‘The drugs weren’t in little packages – I think it was in one big chunk.
‘No one paid for her to go. She was only due to go for a few days.
‘But she didn’t want to get into influencing like some of these other girls
‘She works hard for everything. I can’t say whether someone wanted her to bring the drugs back as I just don’t know.’
Some of the inmates who have previously been locked up in prisons in Dubai held have shared details of the horrors they have seen inside.
Karl Williams, a Brit who was jailed for a year in 2012, revealed in his memoir how he saw men being stabbed to death, had electric shocks administered to his testicles and feared corrupt police would gang rape him.
He described seeing packs of guards stood by without intervening as inmates attacked each other: ‘I saw men get stabbed in the neck and others sliced down their faces. Blood splattered every surface as prisoner after prisoner was sliced.’
He also said the prison was run by Russian gangsters, who would use HIV-positive inmates to rape and infect others as a means of punishment.
Karl Williams claims he saw men torn apart by knife-wielding inmates, while others were forcibly infected with HIV during his time in the hellish Dubai prison. Here he is pictured in his cell during the horror ordeal
A doctor shows a hallway at the medical centre of Al-Awir prison during the Covid pandemic
Mr Williams, along with fellow Brits Grant Cameron and Suneet Jeerh said they were given electric shocks and had guns held to their heads during their time in the jail.
‘They pulled down my trousers, spread my legs and started to electrocute my testicles,’ Mr Williams wrote.
‘It was unbelievably painful. I was so scared. I started to believe that I was going to die in that room.’
The men’s lawyers also said that they were forced to sign documents in Arabic at gunpoint. Emirati police denied the allegations.
Meanwhile, inmate Dinchi Lar said that in her jail there were a minimum of 10 people for three bunk beds, meaning she was forced to sleep on the floor.
‘There’s nothing like personal space… you are sleeping and somebody is in your face. You’re literally sleeping on top of another person,’ she told ITV.
Over three months Ms Lar said she was only able to step outside and ‘see the sun’ for a 15-minute period.
Illness is also rife in the prisons, with one British former inmate suffering from tuberculosis which he contracted while in there.
Human rights campaigners say some with chronic health conditions were denied adequate medical care.
A report in 2019 found that HIV patients in al-Awir were refused life-saving treatment.
The cells were gripped by Covid during the pandemic as well, with cramped conditions making it impossible to social distance.
