Brit held in Dubai 'hellhole' jail on drugs charges and unable to shower
A recruitment consultant has been held on drug charges in a Dubai hellhole prison for three months and has reportedly been unable to shower.
Isabella Daggett, 21, from Leeds, is understood have been arrested just five weeks after moving from Yorkshire to start a new job in the United Arab Emirates. But her family insist she was taken by police simply for being “in the wrong place at the wrong time” and has never used drugs. 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.
She was working for a businessman doing internet recruiting for construction sites in the UK and he offered to send her to the Middle East for a similar role. But police in Dubai allegedly arrested her along with another man not long after she arrived in 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 said how Ms Daggett was being treated harshly inside the prison but thankfully was able to speak to her family regularly. She continued: "She hasn't had a shower for a month, she hasn't had a change of clothes for three months. She has had nothing. Women get treated far worse than male prisoners, who get to go outside, they get sports, a PlayStation and a television - Bella has nothing.
Exactly what charges Ms Daggett faces have not been made public. Mrs Smith said: "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'."
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."
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