Gang Warily

Should be shut. Waste of taxpayers money. There's a consulate in Bangkok, so no need for another one so close.

I think the problem is not lack of cash. I am informed income from services topped 350,000 baht a month two consuls ago. It can hardly have gone down - unless incompetence was involved. Assuming you pay the Hon Con or local staff consular officer 100,000 baht a month and deputy 50,000, plus rent 20,000 / utilities - max it means that consulate was more than breaking even quite some time ago.

The real reasons may be:(a) Consular officials do not want to leave Bangkok and go to Pattaya - let the riff raff come to us (2) its a security risk - too much leakage of info (3) nobody ever thought it out and how much extra work it might create and 'we have set a dangerous precedent' (4) having the consulate staffed by a Brit of Thai extraction while politically correct had failed in its application (5) The old system where one did not actually pay the Hon Con more than 8000 baht a month for working like a navvy is tried and tested.

I live on the outskirts of Bangkok. I have to time my trip carefully. Too early and I will spend 2-3 hours in a traffic jam. Too late and i will not make the 11 am closing time. This is because they apply rigid rules - applications am - pick ups in the afternoon.

Much better if they just opened between 3 and 5 pm and took the rest of the short day off. That way Brits and consular officials will have hopefully recovered from their collective hang-overs and can get their application in before heading to the bar - and then the çustomers'can pick 'em up the following day before heading to the bar again. For Pattaya Brits though it will require two hotel night stays. But bulk discounts could be arranged with the Nana Hotel. Sold by the Pattaya Hon Con.

Maybe the Embassy could do three problems for the price of two. Five problems - win a free night at the Nana.

It is a business they are running. There are reasons for those rigid rules preventing overservicing.

Actually if Foreign Secretary William Hague stayed at home - the cost of his latest trip - would probably pay for an office in Phuket too

[\quote name=londoedan' timestamp='1351465711' post='5792789]

Can't we save the clandestine filming of alleged criminals until after the police and Thai prosecutors have finished with this case ?

I'd flip if anyone started filming me and friends / relations going about our daily business.

I can't imagine that this type of reporting would be allowed in the UK as it would prejudice any court proceedings, so I'm surprised it is allowed here.

[/quote

There is no law of sub-judice in Thailand. This may be because there are no juries and judges 'cannot be influenced'. By the same argument police should not allow the suspects confessing or being pointed at. Circumstances in the UK are quite different than Thailand. But point taken. Where will it end? Possibly not you going about your daily business.

There is a video on this on youtube. I understand I cannot give a link to another website carryng this story

For me there is something wrong with this. In the 10 years of living here I can't remember a tourist getting attacked for nothing. I have seen plenty here get a good kicking by a bunch of Thai's thinking they were back home on a Saturday night in the own town but never just a random attack.

You also can't get stabbed several times with a 15" knife and suffer the small injuries he seems to have suffered. If it is an innocent attack on a tourist for no reason then it is a worrying trend. Lets hope it doesn't spread and if this is the case the police and the courts make an example of these people.

Right Bert - Guess you missed the Aussie tour guide on Phuket murdered while minding her own business. And as for these 'good kickings' you have seen do you really know the reasons? Or are you just assuming they victims deserved it. The originally poster is probably the most sensible poster in this thread. I certainly have seen a foreigner have a bottle smashed over his head and attacked by a mob from a motorcycle queue in Koh Samui. Kicked long after he became unconscious. He was drunk. May have had an argument or whatever. I am still trying to work out what sort of crime merited this very cowardly behaviour. Accept it as a fact of life and enjoy the good bits about the country.

They were not after any cash. They went for the girl. The girl was assaulted. Her boyfriend attacked and then was attacked himself. He successfully diverted their attention to his cost. He had very good reason to believe she was about to be seriouisly sexually assaulted if not raped. You were not there. I prefer the account of the witness. If you do not believe woman have assisted males in the sexual assault and rape of other women then you are living in a very sheltered world. Quite clearly the two young Brits were objects/ targets, of whatever this group was trying to do. The Daily Mail does not need to hype this story. Its also running in The Times and many other newspapers and TV.

If they wanted to rape her, she would have been raped. They took out the boyfriend. They could have done anything they wanted to the girl. They did not rape her or stab her as far as I have read. And there are no independent witnesses as to what happened, only the victim and the attackers and the girlfriends who have said nothing yet.

As for the Daily Mail not needing to hype stories, they don't call it the Daily Fail for nothing, it is possibly the worst newspaper on earth aside from North Korean propaganda rags, it is their MO to make up stuff even when a story is good enough on its own. A simple stabbing isn't good enough, it has to be a biker gang sex pack attack from a hollywood horror film

Just because they have not spoken to you does not mean the girls have said nothing. The test of the credibility of this story will no doubt come when you realise the that the authorities will no longer suggest it was a misunderstanding or the Thai youths claims there was provocation. While I like your poetry and I am no a fan of the Daily Mail its hardly known as the Daily Fail. Its website is now the most popular news site in the world. I have not read any North Korean propaganda rags recently. Doubt you have either. I think you might be confusing the Mail's warped politics with its news gathering capability.

The stories in the Mail, Express, SUN, Bristol Evening Post, Times etc are sourced from Andrew Drummond in Thailand. I believe his stories are banned from this site unless they come under a Daily Mail banner or something similar. However his interview concurs with those done by phuketwan (also not allowed here) and Phuket News. Phuket Gazette which has a link to this site and the Nation did not carry the story. I think the biker gang and hollywood movie are your inventions, but let me check. I'm not sure what you mean by simple stabbing, perhaps you can explain.

Your suggestion that if they wanted to rape the girl they would have done is without any sort of foundation unless you are a mystic Quite clearly there were other people in the area. Nor was Jack 'taken our' . He was still a force when they ran away, but clearly less of one.

The British press are running it....that'll do wonders for tourism.

http://www.dailymail...ach-resort.html

Amazing how the Daily Mail morphed this in to a pack sex attack when apparently she was unharmed and they would have been free to do what they wanted to her after stabbing the boyfriend.

Its also amazing how many stupid people there are on this forum. She was unharmed because he fought back.

He as two daughters at home he could have left all his money to and asked to look after his new thai baby in case something went wrong but he decides to make a will in Thailand ? smart move...

He had two daughters he DiD leave his money to to help look after their baby sister! That may be the proble Sherlock!

This is weird. People are saying that respect for the feelings of the family should be shown. By all accounts his family are Thai and his child is 3 years old...I don't think that they will be on here reading this thread. It's also hard to feel any emotion for the death of someone that we have never met, sad fact, but true. Why was he naked? Why was there blood on the 3rd floor and he was found on the 1st floor? How did the American get in? Did the man open the door naked or did he open the door with his clothes on and then get naked once the guy was there? Was this American a lover?

If we are to be without judgement and just state the facts here, a 66 year old man marrying a 27 year old girl has to be considered unusual. Without judgement...

What is more unusual is the fact that he decided to have kids. We are way beyond the mid life crisis stage, here. It would lead me to question the wisdom and moral compass of such a person...The relationship is acceptable in this day and age, two consenting adults with their own motivations should be allowed to pursue their own dersires...why have children?

As far as this man is concerned, he had 66 years of experience under his belt and still decided to marry a 27 year old woman...He clearly did not read this forum...

People on here have the right to offer their sympathies for a life lost but, let's not ignore the facts...If this murder is going to be solved by the police, they will need to know the man himself.

The facts are: 72 year old retired estate agent, married someone young enough to be his grand daughter, has a child of his own that is young enough to be his great great grand daughter, divorced his grand daughter and found naked beaten in his own house, with no signs of forced entry and has been known to be 'friendly' with another male. It took 3 days for him to be discovered, so clearly, after 6 years has not managed to acquire a group of concerned friends...

Save you sympathies for people who actually wake up in the morning, live a life that is honest and just, surround themselves by people that they genuinely love and love them back. If we live our lives making bad, selfish, childish, hedonistic, egotistical decisions we should expect, at some point, for it to bite us in the ass...He had a good run..

It's all too weird. On the other hand, it's quite possible that he was the nicest and purest man on earth who just happened to move to Thailand, marry his grand daughter, father his great great grand child and get mixed up with a crazy American boxer, if that is the case I stand corrected...

I hope you are prepared to stand corrected on both points. You may find the American had absolutely nothing to do with it it, and was not a muay thai boxer by any stretch of the imagination. That he deeply loved his daughter but was prevented from seeing her, that he did have good friends. That he was divorced, (his wife is pregnant by someone else) but in any case in the divorce settlement she got three cottages, a small apartment block, and a rubber plantation.....and none of this is speculation.

I am saving my sympathy for a man who did wake up in the morning, was surrounded by people who loved him and are fighting for him, and who may not have appreciated the local acting skills of the person who was supposed to love him the most. It will not be the first time. Now please take your ill informed prejudices elsewhere.

All of you farang should realize that rape still makes national headlines here in Thailand. In your countries rape doesn't even make the local news because it is so common.

everyone comes on here showing their hatred of Thailand and demands that it starts emulating the oppressive regimes you lot come from.

Please get out of Thailand if you don't like it. Move back to the UK or USA where you can't even smoke a cigarette without being monitored by the police, and god help you if you step out of the smoking zone.

Rape is not a common crime in Thailand, nor is assault, it happens the same as everywhere in the world but Thailand is one of the safest countries in the world.

Interesting theory ANDY

They found a guy wow now no case as lady gone back home his word against her and she not here to say other wise.

If she did not make a statement in court (not likely if she left the same day) there may be no case

1.2 murders per 100,000 people per year in the UK

20 million visitors to Thailand each year

By UK rates, you could expect over 200 visitors to Thailand to be murdered each year.

Not even "off the charts" by the stats of a "civilized" country like the UK.

Your figure will be seriously understated if you take into account Burmese and Cambodian visitors

It will certainly be of interest to the SA media

Indeed, my missus has a relative who is in the forensics. They were all over the case of the foreigner in Banphai recently, and with a bit of searching of phone records and the such, connected the dots to the wife. Whilst i know they aren't exactly CSI from the TV, they do what they can with what they have in terms of equipment, and this relative of my wife has been to the US several times for training with the US police and also has attended many seminars for training from the US police in Bangkok. They aren't nearly as keystone cops as you may think. The issue comes in terms of how much the very senior bosses of any case want to proceed, and ordinarily when it comes to foreigners it very much depends how much initial publicity occurs, and how much the respective embassy wants to get involved and bring a bit of a beedy eye to proceedings to make sure something keeps moving. You would be amazed how much information they gleen from informants and local gossip, and they basically know who is up to what in any significant way. Problem is, ordinarily the big guys get paid massively to turn a blind eye to so much stuff, that it is basically impossible for an underling to stick their nose into something if the boss doesn't want it to happen, but not all the head coppers are on the take, there are some who are very reliable.

I hear there is a new guy moving down to Chonburi very soon to clean up the Thai and foreign mafia down there. Watch this space, it ain't going to be pretty.

To be perfectly frank, Pornthip covered herself in nothing but doo doo over the bomb detector and her investigations over the police activity in various cases. She is viewed with a lot of distrust by the coppers over her political bias and attitude towards seeking the limelight over issues she has essentially nothing to do with.

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Indeed the guy who was ultimately in charge of the Baan Phai investigation has now moved to Chonburi where he intends to stir up things I suspect.

The full ghastly horror of the Baan Phai investigation can be found if you google Countdown to murder Stephen Phillips

Crime Statistics > Gun violence > Homicides > % homicides with firearms (most recent) by country

VIEW DATA: Totals Definition Source Printable version Bar Graph Map

Showing latest available data. Rank Countries Amount

# 1 Thailand: 79.5805

Crime in Thailand

# 2 South Africa: 59.2028

Crime in South Africa

# 3 Colombia: 45.2092

Crime in Colombia

# 4 Slovakia: 45

Crime in Slovakia

# 5 Guatemala: 42.0706

Crime in Guatemala

# 6 Zimbabwe: 39.6026

#1 in the world for firearm homicides, and people think I'm crazy for wanting to keep a shotgun inside my home for that freak chance one of these clowns is going to come through the roof at 3am.

This site has been shown many times on Thai Visa to be unreliable with regards to statistics as a lot of the stats didn't add up. For instance they'd show Thailand nearly at the top for gun homicides and then the total number of homicides on another list would be less than the number of gun homicides. Hardly makes sense.

I would more trust the United Nations stats, which you can see here:

http://en.wikipedia....y_homicide_rate

If you look at the table "by country" it shows Thailand

I think any stats will not be fully accurate as some countries keep far more accurate stats than others, for instance the U.S. keeps copious amounts of stats even on the smallest of crimes. But I think this will give some idea. Also I don't know if the UN works to compile their own stats to try and make them as accurate as possible.

The really dangerous places on Earth according to these stats are the countries in South and Central America, the Caribbean, and Africa. For Asian countries, Thailand is listed as one of the more dangerous ones, however, with 4.8 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. USA is at 4.2, so quite similar.

For Thailand's population, that would be over 3000 murders in the most recent year. Hardly the 20K by firearm the nation master stats would have us believe.

As for those who believe Thailand is in some sort of slippery slope into some sort of murderous dystopia, I think it's just and impression based on many factors. One, when people first come to Thailand they think of it as some sort of peaceful paradise where the people are calm buddhists and it's safe to walk around at night. Once you get out of the tourist stage and start seeing the actual violence that does go on all too frequently you notice it more and more and start thinking everything's going to hell, here.

I've talked to people in my country who told me they lived in Thailand 20-30 years ago after I told them I had lived in Thailand. They were telling me how dangerous it was back then and how at least in the region they lived in nobody felt safe and how they were told they should keep guns at their house for protection. They had just arrived in the country and were supposed to run some facility and after receiving several threats on their lives from the Thais who thought they should have been the ones promoted from within to run it this family decided it wasn't worth it and left!

So I don't think it's some sort of new phenomenon, slippery slope going on. By the way, the "slippery slope" is called a logical fallacy for a reason.

Yes, Thailand is a dangerous place. I've been seeing these stories ever since I came here 9 years ago (not long compared to some I know). Well I shouldn't say "here" as I"m not currently in Thailand, ha ha. But anyway, don't panic and and run riot with paranoia. Realize Thailand is one of the more dangerous countries in Asia for murder rates and likely other safety issues like car accidents, etc. but it's not descending into some hellish cesspool. It's especially dangerous for tourists who let their guard down on vacation.

But as for most places, it's unlikely you are going to be murdered or even assaulted by a random person or even some person you piss off. Ya, it happens, but it's pretty unlikely. But if you want to live your lives in fear and paranoia with a "sky is falling" alarmist attitude, then so be it. (this is addressed to everyone, not the person whose post I quoted)

There is no accuracy in how Thailand records its murder statistics. Thousand of people die on Thailand's borders each year of 'heart stopped'. Murder officially runs at about 4 times the UK for a similar sized population. The official statistics are well understated.

Did he know that he'd signed a life insurance policy? This is definitley a country where one should be worth more money alive than dead.

Actually he signed a will in her favour a day after they married and two weeks before his death - This is now up on the net if you google Stephen Phillips and countdown to murder

Did he know that he'd signed a life insurance policy? This is definitley a country where one should be worth more money alive than dead.

correction to original report: This did not relate to insurance policy - it related to a will written just days before his death. The correction has been made on andrew drummond dot com