by A British tourist has had his holiday ruined after he was caught in Tunisia by police after being tipped off by a convicted cigarette smuggler. James Colley, 57, known as Jim, went on a package holiday to the North African nation with his wife Louise Colley, 51, on August 2 to celebrate his retirement.
But he was questioned by armed police when he arrived at Enfidha-Hammamet International Airport and then asked to report to a court in the capital, Tunis. Jim later learned that the police were looking for a man named James Coyle, who was convicted in 2012 of not smuggling cigarettes into the country.
The panic-stricken couple spent the rest of their holiday fighting the bewildering accusations. They had to shell out an extra £800 for three eight-hour round trips to Tunisia, lawyers’ fees and bribes to local officials.
When Jim finally went before a judge on the last day of his ‘holiday’, the case against him was dismissed in seconds, as the charges were “too old”. Speaking about their ordeal, dad-of-three Jim said: “We still don’t know what the scam was to make money. Were the police involved? The passport people?
“I’m a calm person, but honestly, you don’t argue with someone with a gun… You have no idea – are they trigger-happy? It was really scary. I’ve never had any mental health problems . in my life, but honestly, this was mentally draining.”
Louise, a community staff nurse, who was by Jim’s side during his ‘holiday from hell’, has now warned Britons not to go to Tunisia. She said: “Don’t go. It sounds terrible because there are some nice people over there, but it’s not safe – I don’t think it’s safe for British tourists to go at the moment.
“It could be our children. They could be on holiday, and it could happen to them. They may not have coped as well as we did. We didn’t know if Jim was going to lock up or what was going to happen next.
“It was all terrible. It should never happen. I don’t know why we were chosen. It’s total fraud over there.”
The couple, from Newcastle, booked their week’s package holiday after Jim quit as a Nissan car plant worker earlier this year. They paid £1,400 to stay at the five-star El Mouradi hotel, in Mahdia.
But they never enjoyed its facilities after the police stopped Jim at the airport and questioned him for four hours. He said: “They kept taking my passport and asking us the same two questions: Have I been in Tunisia before and where did I work?
“I said I was ‘only once on my honeymoon in 2009.’ They didn’t believe us, they said, ‘You already are.’ They had guns, and you don’t argue with someone with a gun. They got an interpreter down there, and he basically said, ‘You will be summoned to appear in court’.”
Jim and Louise arrived at their hotel in the early hours of August 3 when they were forced to pay £95 for a local taxi ride. On August 5, at 4am, they paid a local man to drive four hours to Tunisia along the Trans-African Highway in a battered VW polo for the court appearance.
James recalled how the building looked like a “1960s bank” with “paper files piled high everywhere” and all the staff smoking. Upon his arrival, he was handed a court document, which incorrectly named him as ‘James Coyle’.
Jim said: “In this court, they said ‘English?’ I said yes. And then they said, ‘You have to sign this’… But it had the wrong name. They took us into another room, and there was a superior man there, and he said, ‘Are you innocent then?’ I thought that would be the end.
“But he said, ‘You have to come to the police station tomorrow to hand in this form.’ I said, where is the police station?’ He was in Tunisia again.”
The couple went to the ‘sweltering’ local police station the next day – where James was told he would have to appear before a judge at the courthouse on August 8. A local English lawyer, whom they contacted, initially said she could represent them. them in court for £530.
But they later secured the services of another lawyer for £130 after kicking back the court user for their help, they claim, and went before a panel of judges. Jim said: “I was sitting in the public gallery. There were three judges.
“The doors opened from the side and they started to drag prisoners from the jails out downstairs in handcuffs. Our driver, he was coming in to interpret for us, and he was saying, ‘That man, he tried to have sex to have with a woman. when she didn’t want him, this man hit his mother.’
“I was the last one, even though we paid the usher to get in first. I had to stand with my hands behind my back, my head bowed in front of the three judges. Police were there with their guns. I got a call, so I got up and the lawyers got up.”
The scared Jim said he was not sure how the case would go and was very worried that he would be fined or sent to prison. But within 30 seconds, he said one of the judges “waved his hand in the air” and an usher came and told him: “It’s over, you’re free to go.”
The shocked couple later learned from their hastily formed legal team that the case should not proceed due to the age of the alleged offense. Jim said: “Basically what they knew all along was that the case involved cigarette smuggling in 2012. This James Coyle was convicted in absentia.
“Because the case was over five years old, it was thrown out anyway – not the fact that it wasn’t even me, mistaken identity.”
The Tunisian Embassy in London has been contacted for comment.
