Warren Fellows

Warren Fellows (born 1952) is an Australian who was sentenced to life imprisonment in Thailand in 1981 for his role in a heroin trafficking operation.

Early life

Fellows was born in Sydney, Australia. His father, Bill Fellows, was a champion jockey and horse trainer who won the 1949 Melbourne Cup on Foxzami. He was the youngest of three children, but his two-year-old sister, Gail, died in 1950 from a "bowel complication". His older brother Gary died when he was only 36 years old. Gary was livinl-jkbj-l-bjg with his wife Carole and two sons Brett and Rodney; he also had a daughter, Kimberly. ref|yth

Fellows was educated at De La Salle College, an independent Catholic school for boys located in Byron Bay, New South Wales. Fellows claims he was nearly expelled from the school when he was caught running a horse betting operation from his school desk. ref|exp

Drug trafficking

Fellows worked in various jobs, including as a barman and an apprentice hairdresser in Double Bay. It was through his bar work that he first became involved with drug trafficking, successfully importing hashish from India. On his return to Australia, he married and fathered a child.

Word got out about the successful drug run and a customer in the bar where Fellows worked, employed him to travel to Los Angeles, Hawaii and South America to smuggle cocaine into Australia. Fellows then came to know drug dealer William Sinclair, who took him to Bangkok where he was introduced to Neddy Smith and made his first successful attempt at smuggling heroin into Australia.

After returning to Australia, Neddy Smith contacted Fellows and offered him a job. Smith did not have the notoriety he would have later, but was already a major and feared figure in the Sydney criminal world. Fellows claims he became involved with Smith because he was "young and impressionable" and flattered that he "was liked by a man most people were terrified of". ref|Smith

Fellows worked for Smith as a drug courier, both domestically and internationally. In October 1978, Smith instructed Fellows to again travel to Bangkok, this time in the company of Smith's brother-in-law, Paul Hayward. Hayward played professional rugby league with the Newtown Jets and had been selected to represent Australia as a boxer at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal (he was disqualified from competing after turning professional). Hayward had done "favours" for Smith, but this was his first international job. ref|Hay

Prior to leaving Australia, Fellows was tipped off by a friend with a police contact at Manly, that the Australian Federal Police believed he was involved in a large drug importation operation and had him under surveillance. Fellows reported this to Smith who dismissed it, claiming that he would have been informed if it were true. Smith insisted they continue with the job. Hayward and Fellows became increasingly apprehensive, but after Smith lost his patience with them and made implied threats, they reluctantly agreed to go through with the trip. ref|rel

Fellows was particularly apprehensive about returning to Bangkok. During his last trip in February 1978, he had been forced to abandon a package of heroin he had been attempting to ship back to Australia and he feared that Thai police may have found it and been able to trace the drugs back to him. So he procured a false passport through a friend who obtained it for him in the name of a deceased child, Gregory Hastings Barker.

On arriving in Thailand, Fellows and Hayward met with William Sinclair who now lived in Bangkok and owned the Texas Bar. Sinclair took them to his bar and in a drunken state attempted to obtain information from them about their trip. Unbeknown to them, the trio were under surveillance and the meeting appeared to police to incriminate Sinclair, even though, according to Fellows, he was not involved. Fellows claims that there were many warning signs and that the night before they were arrested he had a "moment of clarity" and resolved to wash the heroin down the bath drain. But he fell asleep and was woken in the morning by police. ref|clarity

Arrest in Thailand

On October 11, 1978, the rooms occupied by Fellows and Hayward at the Montien Hotel in Bangkok were raided by Thai police. The pair were arrested when 8.5 kilograms of heroin was found in a suitcase in Hayward's room. ref|Hell Fellows alleges they were subjected to physical and psychological abuse at the hands of Thai Narcotics Suppression Unit officers who demanded they sign statements which they could not read because they were written in Thai. The officers also demanded Fellows and Hayward make statements incriminating William Sinclair. Fellows claims they resisted because Sinclair was innocent, but he eventually relented when officers informed them they were to be executed without trial under Article 27 of the military law and dragged Hayward outside for execution. ref|threats Fellows and Hayward agreed to sign the statement and Sinclair was arrested and charged.

The three men spent three years in the Maha Chai prison before they were convicted of heroin trafficking. Sinclair and Fellows were sentenced to life imprisonment and Hayward was sentenced to 30 years jail. They were briefly housed at the Lard Yao prison but were soon transferred to Bangkwang. Two years later, Sinclair's conviction was overturned on appeal. Hayward received a royal pardon and was released on April 7, 1989. Fellows also received a royal pardon and was released on January 11, 1989.

Whilst imprisoned in Thailand, Fellows became addicted to heroin. He claimed that heroin was easily available in Thai jails and was the only form of escape from the appalling conditions. In his autobiography, "The Damage Done", he expressed great sympathy for those afflicted by addiction to drugs. He writes that it was "an outstanding case of poetic justice" that he should become addicted himself. ref|regrets

Return To Australia

On his return to Australia, he spent two weeks in a hospital being treated for malnutrition and pneumonia.He expressed concern regarding his and his case partner Paul Hayward's ability to adapt back into society an issue which he claims played a part in speeding up Hayward's death in 2002 from AIDS. After a long period of time back in Australia he seems to have readjusted and has since commented in the media on the cases of the Bali Nine and Shapelle Corby .

Popular culture

Sheffield four-piece band Harrisons penned a song entitled "Simmer Away" after reading "The Damage Done".

ee also

*List of Australians in international prisons

References

# Fellows, W., Marx, J., "The Damage Done", Pan Macmillan Australia 1997, p.44 ISBN 1-84018-275-X
# Ibid, p.1
# Ibid, p.3
# Ibid, p.28
# Ibid, p.30
# Ibid, p.34
# Ibid, p.37-40
# Ibid, p.41-52
# Ibid, p. 205

External links

* [http://www.phaseloop.com/foreignprisoners/warren_fellows/1.html Excerpt from "The Damage Done"] .