A 24-year-old British woman has been given a two-year suspended sentence by a court in Germany for trafficking drugs from Thailand.
Cameron Bradford, from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, was arrested at Munich airport on 22 April while travelling from Bangkok.
Munich District Court heard how Bradford had worked as an escort for a man in the UK who had threatened her, telling her to go to Thailand to pick something up for him.
On her way back to the UK, customs officials in Munich found 20kg (about 45lb) of marijuana in her suitcase.
She told the court that when she was robbed of a week’s earnings by a regular client, she was threatened by the man she worked for, Joseph Coleman, who usually took 60% of her earnings.
Bradford said he had shouted at her, believing she had set up the situation, and told her she would never work as an escort for him again, the court heard.
She said she tried to escape from him, and moved with her young son, but was caught by Mr Coleman who said the only way to resolve the problem was to go to Thailand.
“I was really scared,” she told the court.
On 11 April Bradford left the UK and arrived in Phuket, Thailand, on 12 April, on flights she said Mr Coleman had bought.
Some days later she went to Bangkok, following what she said were instructions from Mr Coleman.
There she was given a suitcase, swapping it for her own bag of clothes.
On her way back to Britain, in transit at Munich airport, German customs officials found marijuana in the suitcase.
She told the court she did not know what was in the case, which was locked.
“I’m not a criminal,” she said. “I don’t know what I was doing.”
Judge Wilfried Dudek said Bradford’s life had not gone well. She had been through an early pregnancy and had mixed with the wrong people.
He said he found it strange that she had not suspected what was in the case, but accepted she had been under pressure.
Bradford said she had never been so sorry in her life and all she wanted to do was go home to her parents and her seven-year-old son.
She said she wanted to have a normal life.
