IT was the most popular destination for Brits seeking winter sun last year, but what happens if you find yourself locked up for a ‘crime’ like kissing or drinking wine on the flight over?
Fabulous investigates the dark side of Dubai.
Tierra Allen thought Dubai was a paradise of beautiful beaches, top restaurants, cool bars and clubs – until she found herself facing up to five years in jail.
The influencer, who posts as Sassy Trucker, had travelled to the city in May 2023 to scope out business opportunities.
While there, she was with a friend in a rental car that was involved in a minor prang – then she was arrested, imprisoned and banned from leaving the country after refusing to pay the $30,000 (£23,105) that the car-rental firm employee demanded for the return of her passport, money and phone.
“It was so confusing,” says Tierra, 29.
“One minute I was asleep in the car, the next I was being arrested and held to ransom with the threat of jail hanging over me. I thought: ‘This can’t be real.’”
Incredible as it seems in a country known for extravagance and excess, and visited by half a million Brits a year, this type of legal nightmare is shockingly common.
While official figures are hard to come by, it is estimated that thousands of Brits are arrested in Dubai and the wider United Arab Emirates (UAE) every year for “crimes” that have included calling someone a “horse” on social media, kissing and accidentally brushing past someone.
Last month, 18-year-old Marcus Fakana, from north London, was sentenced to one year in prison after a holiday romance with a then-17-year-old girl, also from London, while they were both in Dubai.
Sex with a person under 18 is illegal in the city.
Northern Ireland resident Craig Ballentine is also facing two years in prison after leaving a critical Google review of a dog-grooming business he’d worked at.
Likewise, last June, Emirates cabin crew Tori Towey, 28, from Ireland, was charged with attempting suicide (considered a crime in the UAE) and consuming alcohol.
She says she had been in an abusive marriage and, after a row with her husband, tried to end her life.
Police were called, but instead of helping Tori, they strip-searched her and put her in a crowded cell.
Placed under a travel ban, she was only allowed to return home in July, after intervention from the Irish Government and British campaign group Detained In Dubai.
Tierra, from Houston, USA, was a passenger in the car when the accident happened in May 2023.
“My friend was driving when we were in a minor fender bender, no one was hurt. The police arrived, I don’t know who called them. They arrested us both, took us to the station and locked us in a cell. A few hours later, I was released without charge and told I needed to speak to the rental company to get my things back,” she says.
“I went there and was told I needed to pay $30,000. I said: ‘This has to be a joke.’
“I knew it was a scam, but I offered to pay something to get my belongings back. The man demanded the full amount and started to yell. I raised my voice in return and then he said he was going to call the police. I stormed out.”
The next day, Tierra went back to the police station to try to get the issue sorted, but she was arrested for offensive behaviour.
“I was really worried. They gave me a document in Arabic to sign,” she continues.
“I didn’t know what I was signing. I didn’t have a translator, but I was confused and scared and the police said if I signed, there would be no further charges. Then they locked me up for 24 hours.”
Worse was to come. After she was released, a shaken Tierra went to the airport.
“I just wanted to get out of there. I didn’t have my passport, but as far as I was concerned, it had been stolen, so I wanted to see if I could report it missing and get a flight. The airline desk checked a database and told me I wasn’t allowed to leave the country. I went to the US embassy, who said there was nothing they could do.”
For the next four months, Tierra was effectively a prisoner there.
She relied on money sent by her mother, had to pay legal fees and accommodation costs totalling almost £8,000, and was called to court four times, but was never sure what the charges against her were.
She was only allowed to go home on August 8 after Detained In Dubai highlighted her story online.
“I saw a report about my case on social media that said I was facing two to five years in jail,” she says.
“It was so stressful. I felt powerless, I couldn’t bear it. Once my case started getting attention, I was even more anxious, in case I was made an example of.
“I was so relieved to get home. Until I got on the plane and it took off, I wouldn’t allow myself to believe I was actually getting out of there.”
In a statement to the Associated Press in July, the Dubai Police said they “received a complaint from a car rental office, accusing [Tierra] of slandering and defaming an employee amidst a dispute over car rental fees,” and that they questioned and “subsequently released [Tierra] pending the resolution of ongoing legal proceedings between her and the car rental office.”
Lawyer Radha Stirling is founder and CEO of Detained In Dubai.
She tells Fabulous that since the group formed in 2008, it has dealt with more than 20,000 cases.
“We get several hundred inquiries a week,” she explains.
“We’ve had quite a few people who have visited Dubai, left the country without an issue and returned to find a case has been lodged against them. Some have been convicted in absence.”
Radha says it is common for tourists to be randomly questioned and detained at UAE airports, as in the case of Kent dentist Dr Ellie Holman.
She was travelling with her four-year-old daughter and was arrested in July 2018, after having one glass of wine on the eight-hour flight from the UK.
She was detained with her daughter in a cell for three days and initially denied food, water and access to a toilet, before being released.
It is not just holidaymakers who find themselves in trouble.
Travellers with stopovers in UAE airports have also been detained.
Former Love Island contestant Kaz Crossley spent five days in jail in February 2023 after being detained at Abu Dhabi airport during a brief stopover on her way to Thailand from the UK.
She was arrested on drugs charges, because in the weeks before she travelled, a 2020 video had surfaced showing her at a party in Dubai snorting a white powder.
She was shuttled between several jails before being released without charge.
“Problems arise because people don’t understand the system, and because it is very confusing,” says Radha.
“You see Instagram influencers in bikinis posting photos of themselves and assume it’s a free society, and then suddenly, you’re wearing the wrong clothes in a restaurant, someone complains about you, and you are charged with a crime.”
While most minor cases do not end up in jail terms, some have had profound outcomes.
In 2011, Lee Bradley Brown, 39, was arrested after an argument with a hotel maid and detained on charges of using abusive language.
Six days later, the Londoner was dead.
The coroner recorded a narrative conclusion with neglect, saying that the beatings he received from other detainees and police officers/guards probably contributed to Lee’s death.
Daniela Tajeda knows only too well the desperation of having a loved one locked up in Dubai.
Her husband, academic Matthew Hedges, was arrested at Dubai International Airport in May 2018 as he prepared to board a flight home after a research trip organised by Durham University.
The couple were not told details of the charges for months and only learned Matthew, then 30, was accused of being a British spy weeks before a sham hearing, at which he was sentenced to life in prison.
Meanwhile, Daniela, 33, from west London, lobbied journalists, officials and politicians to highlight the injustice, while the head of MI6 even made a very rare public statement to deny the UAE Security Services’ claims.
“Matt’s mum was with him in Dubai visiting the country and dropped him off at the airport. She could see everything unfold as he went through immigration. Armed police were waiting and took him away,” says Daniela.
“I knew they sometimes took people for questioning and thought maybe he would be let out in a couple of days.”
But Daniela, a former PR consultant, was met with a wall of silence.
“There was a lot of uncertainty, not knowing where he was, not knowing who was holding him, or why. I tried to liaise with the British Foreign Office, but they weren’t helpful at the time for a number of reasons, among them I suppose, that the Emirati authorities hadn’t officially reported Matt’s detention.”
After two months, Daniela was finally allowed a monitored phone call with her husband.
“The calls were no longer than a couple of minutes and Matthew was escorted by armed guards, and was told what he could or could not say,” she says. “I could only tell him to stay strong.”
She was eventually allowed a visit in September. “He was very pale. He was very startled. His demeanour was not of the man I had married,” she says.
Matthew later explained that he was held in isolation, sometimes in complete darkness for days, other times in glaring light.
“On top of that, they arbitrarily administered a lot of medication, including tranquillisers, antidepressants, Ritalin and a lot of medical-grade opioids,” explains Daniela.
In October, Matthew was finally released on bail – though was made to wear an ankle monitor and had his passport removed – and Daniela continued to travel between Dubai and the UK raising awareness and lobbying officials.
She learned he had been charged with espionage from news reports, and that he had been coerced into making a video confession.
In November, he was sentenced to life in prison in a five-minute hearing conducted in Arabic.
Daniela was then advised to leave the country immediately for her own safety.
Less than a week later, Matthew was pardoned.
“I was confused, but happy,” says Daniela.
“I knew that he was innocent, and I knew that they were just trying to save face by convicting him. We will never know why they picked on Matthew.
“You never think it will happen to you. It attacks you like a cancer, and it’s not something that you can escape. It’s incredibly painful and it can cost you your life. The emotional toll is huge.”
In September 2022, a spokesperson for the UAE government said Matthew had been convicted of espionage after “a fair and transparent trial at which he admitted the charges against him.”
They also said: “Allegations by Mr Hedges of mistreatment are categorically false and lack evidentiary basis. His claims of being ‘tortured’ while in UAE custody are wholly untrue.”
However, the UK Foreign Office has formally apologised for its handling of Matthew Hedges’ arrest and subsequent torture, acknowledging “the profound impact of [his] detention in the UAE and the injustice [he] faced”.
Since his return home, Matthew’s health has improved, but the couple still live with “the bitter memory and the trauma”.
For Tierra, too, the memories of her time in Dubai remain painful.
“Now, when I see the police, I think they’re coming to get me. I’m traumatised,” she says, vowing never to return to the state.
Like so many others, she now knows the desert paradise of Dubai is just a mirage.
