Briggsy

Yes, I recall reading your story. I suppose it is a bit different at a land border. They sort of just turn you around. When you fly in, there is a lot more palaver. They need to take you to the airport detention centre, have an IO of maybe colonel rank stamp your passport, co-ordinate with the airline, have your baggage collected and re-routed because you are not allowed to collect it. It has the appearance of an official process, but nothing is noted in the computer. As @Rob Browder said, the goal is to inconvenience you and make you incur extra expense so that the cost of safe entry suddenly changes from being unnecessary to being an unmissable bargain.

Whingeing Brits in compo culture crisis. Give us compensation, give us more compensation, it's not fair, what about the inconvenience.......

Indeed the defendant was not white. Perhaps a larger sample size is required.

This mirrors my experience. When I was denied entry, they put a stamp in my passport. At one of the Jantaburi / Cambodia border crossings later that year, the stamp gained the attention of the IO. He asked his boss what to do explaining "there was nothing about it in the computer". (I was allowed in) The point being is that they don't seem to record denials of entry as official denials of entry in the Immigration database. Rather it seems informal with just a stamp or now a small note in the passport.

You might well find that the sentences for smuggling this amount of cannabis can potentially be very light in the UK and mainland Europe. The risk vs reward equation may mean people will continue to do it. A suspended sentence was given out recently for a suitcase full of weed from Thailand. Money equivalent to grafting on a building site for 2 years vs a suspended sentence may well be an attractive proposition.

I have previously had knowledge of Beer Laos smuggled into Thailand before the ASEAN free trade agreement. Each box only ever had 23 or 22 bottles as it was "taxed" en route.

Add phol ek before your name on your Google.

I recently went into Friendship and felt it had become identical to Foodland. I used to be a regular patron of Foodland for years in both Bangkok and Pattaya. However, now, the big players have got all the imported and specialty products so Big C or Tops it is.

Because the authorities will not act.

I hope the authorities look very carefully at this child's home background. To commit such heinous violence at the age of 12 is almost unheard of. I feel it is extremely likely appalling things are going on at the family home. This child needs to be removed from both society and whatever is happening at home until such time he is no longer a danger to others.

I believe it was Areeya Village, Soi Siam Country Club.

Experience has shown that embassies in Western countries* are willing to give you every chance to see if you can provide some documentation which will allow them to issue the visa. This includes highly specific requests telling you what is required, multiple opportunities to submit documents and a reluctance to take the 10,000 Baht ++ fee without issuing the visa. Remember these are all civil servants, usually in a career-long job. They need to remain within the stipulations laid out in the legislation and guidelines. I am sure that embassies and the work of consular officials will be audited by the MFA routinely. So, they need that documentation to support their decision to issue the visa. Once you grasp this, it is a case of making their life easy so they can make your life easy. *(Regional consulates and embassies may be under pressure to apply stricter criteria when considering visa applications.)

My understanding is that in Pattaya (Jomtien) and maybe other Immigration Offices, they want the paper TM30 issued by themselves rather than the pdf from the online TM30 notification site.

It is likely the UK has a reciprocal agreement with Sri Lanka regarding prisoners. She'll probably end up being convicted but serving the latter portion of her sentence in a UK prison. This usually means early release.

The journalist will stick carefully to what he has been told by the police. About 20 years ago, whenever the police came across a deceased person in their hotel room or apartment, they would always report if and how many empty bottles of alcohol there were and the contents of the ashtray. They would also draw some pretty remarkable conclusions based on that. As there were apparently no empty bottles of beer and ashtrays are out of vogue, an empty condom box will do. It's simple and easy and who is going to contradict them.