Daughter of former Brit nuclear scientist could face death penalty for drugs charges

[Nene.]

Daughter of former British nuclear scientist could face death penalty for drugs charges

The daughter of a former British nuclear scientist could face the death penalty in Malaysia after being arrested on suspicion of drugs trafficking.

Shivaun Orton Photo: Andrew Chant

By Andrew Drummond in Bangkok 2:16PM GMT 16 Dec 2010

Mother-of-two Shivaun Orton, 41, from Bangor, Wales, whose father Mike Orton worked at the Atmoic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston, was arrested after a drugs raid on a holiday resort which she and her husband run.

Police seized 225g of heroin, as well as cannabis, amphetamines and ecstasy during the raid on the resort on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia.

Orton, 41, was arrested along with her Malaysian husband Abdul Harris Fadilah, 46, following a raid by Malaysian narcotics police at the Ranting Resort which the couple run in Cherating,

The couple, who have two sons aged 14 and 16, were being held in Kemaman police station in Terengganu state and have been remanded in custody until Sunday.

"It has been the biggest bust in three years, said Chief Superintendent Roslan Abdul Wahid, head of the Terengganu State Narcotics Criminal Investigation Department, said the drugs bust was the biggest of three years, putting the value of the haul at £16,000.

"The cannabis plants alone carry a sentence of life imprisonment," Mr Wahid said. "If the heroin, after analysis, tests positive, then anything over 15 grams carries the death penalty."

Orton's mother Shirley, 67, who lives in Harlech, north Wales, said her husband, who died in 2009, attempted to make contact with their daughter. She has had not contact with her for five years.

"I do not know what to do," she said. "The Foreign Office have not yet informed me." A Foreign Office spokesman said: "A British woman is receiving consular assistance."

 

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Re: Daughter of former Brit nuclear scientist could face death penalty for drugs char


Thursday December 16, 2010

Briton and hubby held with drugs

KUALA TERENGGANU: A British woman and her local husband could face the gallows after police seized drugs worth RM75,000 from their home.

State anti-narcotic chief Supt Roslan Abdul Wahid said that apart from drugs, police recovered five cars, jewellery and RM246,200 from the couple’s home. Supt Roslan said the couple’s adopted daughter, an 18-year-old, was detained to facilitate investigation.

He said the couple were now being investigated under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drug Act 1952, which carries a mandatory death sentence. He said the couple was detained on Dec 12 at their Kemaman home after months of surveillance.

Supt Roslan said the 40-year-old Briton and her husband had tested positive for drugs. He said the couple were in the hospitality business and police were trying to determine if they peddled to holidaymakers.

He said they were addicts and tested positive for methamphetamin-type substance, adding that the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur had been informed about the arrest of its citizen.

 

[Kanetsugu Naoe]

British woman and M'sian husband face death penalty


British woman and M'sian husband face death penalty

Daily Mail
Published Dec 23 201

A British woman, the daughter of a British nuclear physicist and her Malaysian husband have been charged with trafficking and possession of drugs worth more than RM75,000 and face the death penalty if convicted.

Shivaun Orton, 41, and Abdul Harris Fadilah, 46, who have been married for 20 years, and had been operating RM62-a-night backpacker chalets in Cherating, Pahang, were charged on Wednesday under the Dangerous Drugs Act.

Shivaun Orton and her husband Abdul Harris Fadilah being brought to court​

Police found heroin and ecstasy worth more than RM75,000 from their house in Kemaman, Terengganu, about 20km away, during a raid two weeks ago. The case has been scheduled for hearing on January 26.

AFP quoted Terengganu police anti-narcotics chief Roslan Abdul Wahid as saying Shivaun faces five drug charges while her husband faces four.

"They face individual charges of drug trafficking and also a joint charge of illegally possessing five cannabis plants," he said.

"They have been denied bail as trafficking and possessing so much drugs is a capital offence," Roslan said, adding that "if found guilty, the two will face the death penalty, which in Malaysia is by hanging."

The chalets are also under investigation as a location where drugs could have been sold to customers.

Shivaun is the daughter of prominent British nuclear physicist Mike Orton, who died of cancer in April last year. She grew up in the Welsh coastal town of Harlech.

It is understood that Mike Orton and his wife, Shirley, 67, were estranged from their daughter.

The British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur confirmed that Orton had been charged under Malaysia's Dangerous Drugs Act.

"Our High Commission is providing consular assistance and a member of the High Commission staff has visited her," it said.

"We are also in close touch with the British national's family and are providing them with consular assistance."

 

[Cao Pi]

Re: Daughter of former Brit nuclear scientist could face death penalty for drugs char


Drugs charge British mother is victim of Malaysian husband

Briton Shivaun Orton, 41, with Malaysian husband Abdul Harris Fadilah, 46, being taken to the court.
​

At first glance, it is hard to feel much sympathy for Shivaun Orton.

After all, when Malaysian police raided their home in Kemaman, Trengganu, they found bundles of cash and their largest drugs haul for three years.

And despite caring for sons Jacob, 16, and Isaac, 14, Shivaun and her Malaysian husband Abdul Harris Fadilah, 46, are self-confessed heroin users in a country where possession of just 15 grams carries the death sentence.

Furthermore, following the discovery of £16,000 worth of cannabis, crystal methamphetamine, ecstasy and heroin, police believe the couple’s £35-a-night hostel in Cherating, Pahang, has been a hub for drug dealing for at least ten years, The Mail on Sunday of UK reported.

Last week 41-year-old Shivaun – whose late father Mike was a respected nuclear physicist – was moved to an all-women prison amid fears that, if found guilty of the drug-trafficking charges she faces, she could become the first British woman to be hanged since Ruth Ellis was put to death for murder at Holloway Prison in 1955.

But 7,000 miles away in the small Welsh coastal town of Harlech, Shivaun’s widowed mother, sisters and brother are preparing to sell their homes, if necessary, to prevent what they believe is a gross miscarriage of justice.

The legal effort to save Shivaun’s life is being co-ordinated by her older sister Stephanie Hiscox, a university-educated nurse who insists Shivaun has been kept a virtual prisoner for a decade and forced into drug addiction by her husband, who has also been arrested and faces drugs charges.

"We are ready to do absolutely whatever it takes to save my sister," Stephanie told The Mail on Sunday. "We know the best legal advice does not come cheap but no price is too high for Shivaun’s freedom.

"She should not be where she is and if getting her out means spending everything we have, selling our properties and taking out loans, that is what we will do."

The sisters’ 73-year-old mother Shirley has barely spoken since her daughter was arrested just over a week before Christmas. Stephanie said: ‘We’re all going out of our minds with worry. Christmas has been awful.

"We can’t enjoy ourselves because we think of Shivaun, alone and facing execution." The 48-year-old said her sister is guilty of nothing more than being the unworldly, unconventional product of a family who moved to Harlech in the Seventies on a quest for self-sufficiency.

"Our home life was a bit like The Good Life, which was on TV at the time and I think was the inspiration for my parents to turn our garden into a vegetable plot."

Stephanie was very close to Shivaun as a child and remembers fondly walking hand-in-hand with her to school, where she enjoyed art. Outside the classroom, the younger sister loved looking after her fam¬ily’s chickens, treating them like pets.

Shivaun was even seen walking her favourite – a Rhode Island Red called - Alison – around the town in a pram. At 16, Shivaun left school with just one O-level – in biology. Ignoring her parents’ concerns, she left for London to work as a hotel housekeeper.

"She could be rather headstrong and once she’d made up her mind, there was no changing it," Stephanie said. When she visited her sister in London two years later, she found Shivaun had transformed. "It was the Eighties and she was into all the latest fashions. She seemed so sophisticated."

At just 21, Shivaun married her French boyfriend, Olivier, and emigrated to Miami, but the marriage collapsed within a year. Remaining in the US, she soon met Abdul Harris Fadilah, who was then working as a pool hall manager.

"I was in regular contact with Shivaun by phone while she was in Miami and she told me she’d met this guy she said was wonderful called Harris," Stephanie recalled. "She said she’d never been happier."

But it was also around this time that Shivaun admitted to her sister that she had tried crack cocaine, insisting it was "not something she’d be making a habit of". None of her family attended Shivaun and Harris’s wedding in Miami two years later, but it wasn’t due to disapproval.

"It was just so far away," Stephanie said. "Shivaun said they only married because Harris wanted to take her back to Malaysia with him to rescue the family business, a resort in a tourist region."

Shivaun invested £20,000 of her savings to stave off creditors at the holiday complex, made up of chalets, a beach bar, swimming pools and a restaurant.

"She was working at the resort 18 hours a day, seven days a week," Stephanie said. "She hardly saw the children." In 1998, Shivaun brought Harris and their sons to Britain for the first time.

"They stayed with Mum and Dad for two weeks. My parents got on well with Harris and liked him. When they went back, Shivaun was very tearful. When she got to Malaysia, she told me she was homesick." But it took another two years before the sister confided deeper problems.

In one of their regular chats, Shivaun revealed she had found Harris in their bed with another woman. He then admitted sleeping with many other women. Worse, a woman from Miami had turned up at the resort with a child she claimed was his.

She revealed she had been married to Harris and that they were not divorced, making Shivaun’s marriage illegal. Stephanie said: "Shivaun was in pieces. But instead of Harris begging her forgiveness and offering reassurance, he became incredibly nasty and hostile towards her."

He threatened to tell the authorities their marriage was illegal and said she would be jailed, flogged or deported, meaning she would lose her sons. "Shivaun’s parents urged her to flee to Wales but she would not abandon her children."

For the next ten years, Shivaun learned to live with the increasingly strict regime. Stephanie said. "He locked her in the house while he went out to meet other women for sex."

Ironically, Stephanie says her sister feels a certain sense of relief since her arrest. "She knows she is facing execution but says being a prisoner now is better than being a prisoner in her own home.

"She says the children will be better off now their father is behind bars. Shivaun stayed in Malaysia because her husband put her in an impossible position. "It is our duty as her family to do everything we can to help."