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Plight of jailed drivers
Page 24
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• The Foreign Office has again been slammed for not supporting hauliers in foreign jails. Jacqui Rose had been imprisoned in Greece from 19 December 1996 to October this year after she and boyfriend, driver James Dormer, were arrested on the charge of stealing a load of shoes they were due to deliver.
They were separately imprisoned and faced trial in October. Rose was acquitted, Dormer was imprisoned for five years.
Rose is still "bitter and annoyed" by the response of the Foreign Office and British Consulate in Athens to their plight. "They did not want to know or give us help until I was acquitted, when they gave me the ticket to fly home. Even then I had to go to them," she says.
Rose says although she has no money the Foreign Office is trying to recoup the 1200 air fare.
She says the Foreign Office is still doing nothing to help Dormer. "Jimmy and I are innocent," she says. "We reported the shoes' disappearance to the police. We did the decent thing."
Rose says the Greek police presumed from the start that the couple were guilty of the theft. She was shocked when Dormer received five years.
Rose is unsure whether Dormer can survive another "18 months at least in jail". She says Greek male prisons suffer from serious overcrowding.
She describes her time in jail as "very hard but that it could have been worse". She says she will fight for Dormer's release.