Is there anybody anywhere who has any sympathy for these women?

I don't know, I'm torn between sympathy, empathy and all out "serves them right".

You see I have two daughters of similar age and I look at their photos and I empathise with their parents who must be going through all kinds of hell, and I sympathise with them as young naive girls who COULD have been caught up in something that they had no clue of how to get out of.

Just as a "for example" a friend of our family has a 22 year old son who found himself unemployed after serving an apprenticeship and so took his savings of around £1000 to Ibiza for the summer, told his mother he'd be back when it ran out, would get a job in a bar etc etc etc, like thousands before him. On the third day away he rang his mother and asked her to put some money in his bank account as a lap dancing bar had just extracted £800 for one night out, fortunately she'd made him keep a couple of hundred at home for a return flight and thats how he found himself sitting at home after a very short trip to Ibiza.

Yes, its naivity and yes its stupidity, but thats 22 year olds for you and thats how easy it is to get involved with something that you had no intention of doing so, fortunately he had a good relationship with his family and was able to admit to being dumb.


On the other hand they might have planned the whole thing themselves...

I just think if a Peruvian was caught in Heathrow with a million pounds worth of coke in his baggage and said every member of his family would be killed if he didn't smuggle the drugs, our authorities would say "Very interesting. Guilty, 7 years in prison."

It's not an excuse that would ever work with us, so why the families seem to think it will work in Peru I don't know.

For it to work then he'd have to be accusing British citizens of recruiting him and threatening his family, skeptical of certain areas of our civil service as I am I can't see our Police Force simply turning a blind eye for a quick conviction of a courier rather than taking on a criminal gang.

Will they do it in Peru, I wouldn't be betting on it, the criminals are probably more powerful than the government, will probably include the government, no wonder Paddington wanted out.

Other than the fact that, if proved, duress is a complete defence in English law, you mean?

How many people have been found not guilty because they were forced into smuggling drugs?

Irrelevant. You didn't know that IF a person can prove they acted under duress then that is a defence. It is. Now you know. If you would like a detailed judicial discussion of the principles, then the case of R. v. Lambert, [2001] UKHL 37 may shed some light for you.

Specifically drugs cases, the Canadian case of Ruzic in 2000 was one such acquittal. A US case of Thaiton-Arriola (and 13 others) had a similar outcome. I'm sure if you bothered to do a bit of research yourself you would find more examples, but even if there were none, it wouldn't alter the fact of the availability of the defence, which then the accused need only establish on the balance of probabilities.

If the two girls are being kept apart, as has been reported, it should be relatively straightforward to establish whether they were acting under duress. They'll give the same, or at least very consistent, detailed accounts of the events leading up their arrest.

No idea ... tell you what, let's just speculate without any corroborated facts.

I think they deserve a good slap like Madeleine McCann's parents.