British couple speak of time in Saudi jail

Press, 11 August 1980, Page 7

British couple speak of time in Saudi jail

NZPA London A British surgeon and his young wife spoke at the week-end of their days in a Saudi Arabian jail with the threat of beating hanging over them. “It was a different lifestyle for us. We were living virtually on the floor but we were befriended by the other prisoners and this made life bearable in adverse conditions” said Richard Arnot, aged 39, who was in prison for five months and four days. His wife, Penelope, aged 34, spent three months in jail. The couple were allowed to leave Saudi Arabia last week after a year during which they faced the threat of a beating for using alcoholic drinks at a party in contravention of Saudi Arabia’s strict anti-alcohol laws. They were caught after a nurse and her boyfriend fell from a balcony and were killed during the party. Mr Arnot said the threat of flogging did not fill them with terror. “It is meant to cause humiliation more than pain” he said today at the home of his mother-in-law in the village of Trent, Dorset “The word flogging does hot give a true picture of the punishment; perhaps beating would be better. It is administered with a long cane, and it is more of a tap-tap-tap than the old cate of-nine-tails.”

Mr Arnot thought his wife might have been scarred mentally more than physically, although he doubted that the caning would have been in public. It was something all prisoners seemed to get.

The prison governor was sympathetic to the British and, although Mr Arnot and his wife were in different

parts of the prison 4 they were allowed to meet, sometimes two or three times a week. Talking about the drinks offences for which they were held, Mr Arnot said they took a calculated risk just as many drivers risked the breathalyser. They had taken the risk, and they had paid the penalty. It was a year ago to the day of their arrival home on Saturday that Mrs Arnot was released from jail. It was only last Tuesday that they heard their flogging sentence had been commuted, and that they were to be deported. They had not dared believe the news until the plane had taken off and they were on the homeward journey. “It was incredible” said Mrs Arnot. “It is so marvellous to be home.”

The couple had a tearful reunion with their children, Lucky, aged seven, and William, who will be nine next week.

Their immediate plans ere to get away somewhere for a holiday, and then they would consider writing a book about the affair.

The couple were reluctant to talk about the accident at the party which gave rise to the offences. It was at that party in a sixth-floor Jeddah flat that a British nurse, Helen Smith, and her Dutch boyfriend fell •to their deaths.

Ronald Smith, the nurse’s father, has appealed to Mr and Mrs Arnot for help in investigating his claim that there was a cover-up over the deaths. Mr Smith believes that his daughter’s death was something other than an accident.

Mr Arnot said: “I really do not think we can be of any help to him. We have said all there is to say,”