British woman cleared in drug smuggling case

A British woman in prison in the West Indies on a drug trafficking charge has been cleared of any wrongdoing and is expected home in the next few days.

Marianne Telfer, 28, of Colchester, was arrested in the Dominican Republic in February after her boyfriend Richard Flack collapsed when bags containing cocaine burst inside him. Miss Telford, a social care manager, insisted she did not know Mr Flack, 34, a landscape gardener, had swallowed drugs.

Her family, an MP and Fair Trials Abroad, a group which helps Britons imprisoned overseas, launched a campaign to free Miss Telfer. A spokeswoman for Fair Trials Abroad said today that lawyers had successfully argued there was no evidence against her at a court hearing.

" We are thrilled," said the spokeswoman. "She should never have been charged. All the paperwork should be completed tomorrow when we expect her to be formally released."

Miss Telfer's mother, Sheila, 57, who has been in the Dominican Republic since her daughter's arrest said: "I am thrilled to bits."

Miss Telfer's father Roger, 58, a retired economics lecturer, said: "She has been caught up in something that she knew nothing about." He said his daughter and Mr Flack had been together for nearly a year. Miss Telfer discovered her boyfriend was a former heroin addict a few months into their relationship. The couple had been on the last day of a twoweek holiday when Mr Flack collapsed.

Mr Telfer said: "Mr Flack was ingesting cocaine to smuggle it back into the UK. Clearly a number of the bags split and he died a particularly agonising death. Marianne found him. Not only had she to cope with her partner dying in these terrible circumstances, but also with being arrested and charged."