Brit woman, 21, rotting in Dubai hellhole jail without a shower for a month after being arrested on drugs charges
Cops arrested Isabella Daggett, 21, just five weeks after she relocated to Dubai from Yorkshire after landing a new job.
7
7
7
And she has not taken a shower or even changed her clothes in months after being banged up in a prison in March, her family claims.
It all happened when Ms Daggett was offered to work in Dubai earlier this year.
The Britton was working for a businessman doing internet recruiting for construction sites in the UK, who offered to send her to the Middle East for a similar role.
But she was arrested by Dubai police - along with another man - soon after she set foot in the desert city.
Ms Daggett's family claims that she has done nothing wrong, has never used narcotics and was rather lured to move to Dubai.
Her grandmother Heather Smith told the DailyMail: "Bella has been locked up because she was in the wrong company. Wrong place, wrong time. Wrong boyfriend.
"The bloke she was working for said for her to come to Dubai, you'll love it there, the lifestyle is wonderful. Now she is locked up.
"But she is innocent because they have done all the tests and there was nothing in her system."
Mrs Smith described how the woman was being treated harshly inside the prison.
She added: "She hasn't had a shower for a month, she hasn't had a change of clothes for three months. She has had nothing.
Charlotte May Lee fears being locked away for 20yrs over £1.2m Sri Lanka drugs bust – & is 'aware' of Bella Culley case
"Women get treated far worse than male prisoners, who get to go outside, they get sports, a PlayStation and a television - Bella has nothing.
"She can speak to me and her mum every day though, which is good. But we have been in bits."
It is understood that Ms Dagget was arrested alongside another man, with whom she was living at the time.
The grandma said her family had warned Ms Dagget about the potential dangers of the Middle Eastern city with tough prison laws.
She added: "She was arrested with a lad, who was not her boyfriend, with whom she was staying because things had fallen through with another house.
"She didn't really like him that much.'He may be guilty of something, but she isn't."
"We told Bella before she went to Dubai, 'you know the rules in Dubai, play by the rules, don't flaunt this, don't do that'."
She added said she was going to move back to Leeds just before being arrested.
It is not clear under what charges Ms Dagget was arrested.
Ms Daggett's mum Lucinda Smith, with whom she ran a Leeds-based modelling agency, posted a GoFundMe page to help her daughter.
The fundraiser read: "My daughter Isabella has been wrongfully detained in Dubai, and we are doing everything we can to prove her innocence and bring her back home.
"We have proof she was not involved in these charges and are determined to fight for her freedom. The hideous conditions she is living in are enough to break any mother's heart.
"The legal and travel expenses are overwhelming, and we need your support. Any contribution, no matter how small, will help us cover the costs of legal fees, travel, and other necessary expenses."
7
7
In the last couple of weeks, two other Brit women were arrested abroad for alleged drug smuggling.
Glam tourist Bella Culley allegedly tried to smuggle a suitcase of weed into Georgia and was locked away in a brutal ex-Soviet prison despite claiming to be pregnant.
The 18-year-old was sent to the brutal Women's Penitentiary No. 5 in the town of Rustavi - a slammer notorious for its hellish conditions just outside Tbilisi.
She had originally jetted to the Philippines to meet an old friend, but reportedly changed her plans last minute to go to Thailand with a gang of British lads unknown to her.
A sentence ranging from 20 years to life could be a possibility for teen Bella from County Durham, according to prosecutors.
Meanwhile, former air stewardess Charlotte May Lee was then caught allegedly trying to smuggle drugs worth £1.2million into Sri Lanka.
Her two suitcases were said to have been stuffed with 46kg of a synthetic cannabis strain known as kush — which is 25 times more potent than opioid fentanyl.
If found guilty, South Londoner Charlotte could face a 25-year sentence.
There are also fears that both the "smuggling cases" could be linked.
Experts told The Sun how wannabe Brit Insta stars are being lured by cruel gangs into carting drugs across the world.
7
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
4 hours ago
- The Guardian
I'm a legal refugee in Britain. So why am I always being treated like a criminal?
Hardly a day goes by without a new insult being hurled in the faces of asylum seekers and refugees. We're scroungers, rapists, fighting-age men who shouldn't have left our home countries. Sometimes we're simply 'illegals', the most dehumanising term of all. When did it become a crime to run for your life? The people levelling these accusations are superb at making themselves heard. Mud sticks – and most of us are too scared to try to set the record straight. I don't know how many of our accusers have sat down with us, human to human, and listened to our stories. Here's mine. I grew up in Syria. My childhood was safe and happy – idyllic when I look back at it. In 2011, the Arab spring and civil war in Syria changed everything. I was imprisoned twice for protesting against the Assad regime, but it never crossed my mind to leave. Like many young people, I never thought death would come for me. Everything changed when I was almost killed in a deadly missile attack in a suburb of Aleppo I was only 17, and I realised that I wanted to live. So I escaped. First to Turkey, and then I travelled through Europe until I reached Calais. I hoped to reach the UK for two reasons. First, my auntie and cousins live here. After my mum died when I was 14, my auntie became a second mum to me. Second, I could speak English. The thing people don't understand about refugees is how tired we are from what we have been through. All I could think about was resting and being with my auntie. I spent 10 months in Calais trying to get to Britain. It was before small boat crossings become the main method of getting here, but the smugglers were there. We all hated them because they made it more difficult for us to cross the Channel without them. I tried every way I could: lorries, cargo trains, sneaking into the port to try to conceal myself on a ferry. At that time the French police were attacking migrants, as they do now. Sometimes they would be helpful and tell us things such as what time border guards changed shift – that was the best time to try to sneak on to a train or a lorry. Sometimes we were wished good luck by French and British border force and police; some saw us as humans, some saw us as criminals. When I made it to the UK in 2017, I thought I had finally found safety, but my experience with the Home Office reminded me that I hadn't. I always felt as if I was being treated like a criminal. I was required to report to a police station regularly, and it took more than two years to get a decision on my asylum case. Government aside, in that period British society was generally more welcoming towards people such as me. I could walk down the street in one of the UK's diverse cities and blend in. I met wonderful people who always made me feel as if I belonged. Everything changed when the previous government introduced the now-cancelled Rwanda scheme. People were put in detention centres and threatened with deportation. Although I had been granted leave to remain by then, I was really scared that the government would come after me too and deport me. That fear has grown even more since the Home Office changed its policy this February: people like me who entered irregularly will now 'normally be refused citizenship'. One of the nightmares I often have is of shouting for help in the middle of the street when no one can hear me. I now feel I am living that dream. Now that I have lived in the UK for a few years, I understand the politics better. People just want someone to blame for the state of the economy and public services – and migrants and refugees are the easiest to blame. Some believe the lies about us. I work as a cinematographer and also volunteer with a charity as an Arabic interpreter. I speak to a lot of age-disputed young people who the Home Office insists are adults and have been placed in adult hotels. It is so obvious when I listen to them speak that they are children. They cry down the phone to me. They hate being in hotels, forced to share rooms with adults they don't know. Most refugees dream of returning home if it becomes safe to do so. I often think back to the secure time of my childhood. I grew up with the scents of jasmine and geranium in my garden. I have planted those things here to try to recreate a sense of home. No matter what I do here to contribute, I feel I will always be viewed as a criminal and someone at risk of being sent back to my country, however unsafe it is. Open, explicit racism seems to be on the rise in Britain. It starts with refugees like me and other migrants – but they will soon come for other people simply because they are not white, or belong to the 'wrong' religion, or their sexual orientation. Unless we act now, things are going to get worse. As told to Diane Taylor Ayman Alhussein is a Syrian film-maker based in London Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Daily Record
4 hours ago
- Daily Record
Gang war unlikely to 'abate' says senior cop as she admits force under pressure
Deputy Chief Constable Jane Connors brought up Operation Portaledge during a Scottish Police Authority meeting. A senior cop has said that the brutal gang war raging across Scotland is unlikely to 'abate'. During a Scottish Police Authority meeting at the Clayton Hotel in Glasgow, Deputy Chief Constable Jane Connors said that 'It doesn't look like that type of behaviour is going to abate" when discussing Operation Portaledge, which was set up in response to a string of gangland attacks over the past five months. DCC Connors also revealed that organised crime squads and intelligence teams are being stretched under 'continued pressure' by the gangland chaos, and other policing operations including responses to protests held over immigration and the conflict in Gaza. Police Scotland launched Operation Portaledge in response to gangland attacks involving the Lyons and Daniel crime clans, and the targeting of alleged associates of kingpin Mark Richardson by a group called Tamo Junto, who are the enforcers for Dubai-based crime boss Ross McGill. To date more than 55 people have been arrested by officers as part of Operation Portaledge. SPA board member Katharina Kasper raised fears over the force's ability to juggle their daily duties while tackling protests, and DCC Connors mentioned Operation Portledge in her response. Ms Kasper asked DCC Connors: 'How quickly will we know that you are managing to balance the day-to-day with the protests or how quickly will we know that it isn't working and there is a deterioration in performance? 'From my experience, you can only sustain increased demand for so long before something has to give.' DCC Connors replied: 'The pressure on our staff is really felt, the federation, our staff associations and our colleagues will constantly feed in. 'We're absolutely acutely aware that we are putting continued pressure on staff in a whole number of different areas. 'If you look at the serious and organised crime space with Operation Portaledge, again, significant pressure on our serious and organised crime teams, our intelligence analysts, our higher threat capabilities over the summer in particular. 'It doesn't look like that type of behaviour is going to abate either. 'We monitor performance regularly. We look at our different crime types, our different crime groups. 'We do look at our detection rates in particular as well as that will tell us the pace and timeliness of investigation and where our officers can actually invest their time in the investigation elements of it.' A gang war erupted on the streets of Edinburgh in March when Ross McGill's Tamo Junto (TMJ) gang went after mob boss Mark Richardson and his associates after the kingpin's men paid for a cocaine deal with fake bank notes. The gang torched a series of properties and businesses throughout the city, before the war spread to Glasgow in April when they went after the Daniel crime clan over their links to Richardson. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'.
The Independent
6 hours ago
- The Independent
Lebanon releases Israeli citizen held in detention for a year
An Israeli citizen detained in Lebanon has been returned to Israel after more than a year in detention, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Thursday. There was little information given about the man, identified as Salah Abu-Hussein, an Arab citizen of Israel. His imprisonment had not garnered public attention in Israel or Lebanon. Israeli media reported that the man's family had reported him missing around a year ago and was unaware he was in Lebanon. Four Lebanese security and judicial officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the case, said the man had entered the country illegally by crossing the land border between the two countries and was then caught by Lebanese security officials. At the time of his crossing, Israeli forces and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah were engaged in ongoing low-level clashes in the border region, which escalated into a full-scale war in September 2024. It was halted by a U.S.-brokered ceasefire two months later. Abu-Hussein's release was negotiated in secret over the past few months in cooperation with the Red Cross, according to Gal Hirsch, Netanyahu's coordinator for the Hostages and the Missing, who is also Israel's point of contact for the hostages in Gaza. On Thursday, Lebanese Authorities handed Abu-Hussein to Hirsch at the Rosh Hanikra crossing between Lebanon and Israel, which is not open to the public. Lebanon and Israel do not have diplomatic relations and Israeli citizens are prohibited from entering Lebanon under Lebanese law, with rare exceptions for Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship. Netanyahu hailed the return of Abu-Hussein. 'This is a positive step and a sign of things to come,' he said after Abu-Hussein returned. There was no official comment from the Lebanese government on his release. A group advocating for Lebanese citizens held in Israeli prisons denounced the move. The Representative Committee of Lebanese Prisoners and Freed Prisoners said in a statement that 19 Lebanese citizens are imprisoned in Israel and called the release of the Israeli citizen by Lebanon 'blatant betrayal.' ————— Sewell reported from Beirut.
