Nick Baker sent back to Britain to finish jail sentence

Wednesday 21st May, 06:30 AM JST

By Emma Tilley

After six years in solitary confinement, Nick Baker has finally won his battle to be transferred to a British jail. The 36-year-old was convicted in 2003 of trying to smuggle £1.4 million of cocaine and ecstasy through Japan’s Narita Airport and jailed for 14 years.

Ever since, he and mum, Iris Baker, have been battling to both overturn the conviction, or at the very least, have him transferred to a UK prison to serve his sentence.

Now finally, the harsh Japanese prison regime is behind him as he has returned to the UK following an agreement with the Japanese embassy and will serve the remainder of his sentence, now reduced to 11 years, in Wandsworth prison.

His weight has dropped from 15 stone to under nine stone and he has lost all of his muscle, along with several toenails after suffering frostbite every year.

Iris, of St Michael’s Road, Cirencester, is delighted her son is back in the UK after years of campaigning for his human rights.

Describing Japanese prison conditions as barbaric, she said it was only since he returned to the UK that she had been able to talk to him about his horrifying ordeal.

“The Japanese justice system is corrupt and barbaric,” she said. “Of course people have to be punished but Nick spent most of the six years in solitary confinement. He is less than half the person he was.”

While in prison, Baker was only allowed to speak for 10 minutes a day and was separated from other English-speaking prisoners.

“I have been through a lot but he has lost everything,” she added. “For whatever he has done, he has paid the ultimate price.”

He told his mother he saw big, strong men crumble under the harsh prison system.

The last six years have been hard for both Baker, a former choir boy at Cirencester Parish Church, and his mum but out of the nightmare, they have both gained huge support from local residents.

When he left the Japanese prison, Baker was handed over 200 letters which the prison guards had kept from him.

Iris said: “Nick is worried when he comes back that he will be singled out but he has so many people who have supported him. Without their support, I would never have got through this and neither would Nick.”

Baker has always protested his innocence and claimed he was set up by traveling companion James Prunier, who later committed suicide while being investigated for similar charges in Belgium.

Iris, who helps at a Stroud workshop for troubled teenagers, said: “Hopefully youngsters will read about this and be more aware. Nick ruined his life because of a moment of stupidity.

“This could happen to anybody. Mainly it is youngsters who do it because they are gullible.”

Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard

Latest 15 of 97 Total Comments Show All

DXXJP at 05:23 AM JST - 23rd May

so tell me in what country you would be found inocent with a suitcase full of drugs. Confession or not it was in his case and for as long as I can remember the airlines have been asking if you packed your bags. So is it becouse he's a expat some of you feel compeled to belive his story. I know in the states whether he packed it or not he still would have been sent to prison.
motytrah at 08:31 AM JST - 23rd May

I was talking to a co-worker of mine who was stationed Japan in the 90s. A US serviceman he was acquainted briefly was serving time in Japanese prison. A couple years in to his sentence he was discharged to US custody when he suffered organ failure from malnutrition. The general thought is foreigners in Japanese prison do slightly better than WWII POWs. Which isn't saying much.
thundercat at 08:57 AM JST - 23rd May

DXXJP

so tell me in what country you would be found inocent with a suitcase full of drugs

Look no further than Japan my friend. In the past month a Swedish woman and a British man were both found innocent after being caught with suitcases full of amphetamines and marijuana.
nigelboy at 11:14 AM JST - 23rd May

nigelboy, with all the evidence staring you in the face, how can you really say that forced confessions are rare? You have no evidence of that whatsoever, that's just a belief you have decided to hold.

So far, you have not shown any evidence that "forced confessions" are rampant among the Japan's judicial system. Of the several hundred thousands criminal cases per year, how many were "forced" to confess someting that these alleged criminals did not do?

Why won't they record anything then? No tape players in Japan? Shortage of Olympus IC recorders?

I'm all for taping interrogations if it means legitimizing these confessions. I certainly do not want a criminal using the "forced confession" card when the case gets desparate for them like a certain known celebrity who used the "race card".

Why the 23-day without charge rule?

Why not? Why not allow the prosecution to build the case for these criminals?

Why the allowance of mild torture?

What specific article in the criminal procedure code allows mild torture?

Why no acceptance of new evidence? Why the continued blocking of retrials, even when police have admitted to fabrication, or new important evidence exists?

Didn't Thundercat give you an example where acceptance of new evidence and retrial happened? The man was freed because of a CONFESSION from another. The big bad C-word is at play here.

There is an automatic conviction based on a forced confession taken under 23 days of duress in a holding system. Many just confess to avoid court and pay big fines and compensation because they know they will be found guilty even if they're not.

Wait a second. Are you stating that people confess because they seek an automatic conviction??
nigelboy at 11:17 AM JST - 23rd May

Look no further than Japan my friend. In the past month a Swedish woman and a British man were both found innocent after being caught with suitcases full of amphetamines and marijuana.

Yep. I'm loving the trend already. sigh.
Patrick Smash at 02:41 PM JST - 23rd May

nigelboy

Still reading those books eh. You know people confess because there's no fair trial and they will be incarcerated long enough to lose their jobs, wives and families if they don't get out quick. Anyone arrested, for any reason, can be held for 23 days of misery. You think this is OK because "the prosecution has time to build a case"? No mate, this is a brutal abuse of human rights.

A Japanese mate of mine was arrested for resisting arrest: work that out if you can. 23 days later they let him go uncharged, but refused to tell him why he was arrested. So he refused to break, and never got sent to court, but he lost his job. This sort of thing happens all the time. People suspected of major crimes get the full workout. People die wearing the constraints they force on them, happens every year. Sleep deprivation, noise and sensory abuse, this happens every day in Japan. But you believe your books and your girlfriend Nigelboy, I know nothing else gets through to you
nigelboy at 03:25 PM JST - 23rd May

Oh please Patrick Smash. Please spare me with your "mate" stories for it only weakens your argument in my book. It's a sign of desparation.

Only 32% of the accused (not include traffic related incidents) are arrested and detained. Robbery/theft 79.1%, rape 75.8%, and murder 64%. In other words, those who are detained are accused of pretty heavy stuff. Close to a million cases of penal code offenses, there simply isn't enough room/luxury of time to bother with your "mate"'s case. So I'm calling your BS.
thundercat at 06:15 PM JST - 23rd May

Nigelboy

'Why the 23-day without charge rule?' Why not? Why not allow the prosecution to build the case for these criminals?

Criminals? You seem to be assume that all people arrested and held are automatically guilty. That just isn't the case. Otherwise the arrest rate (those detained) would be hovering around the 99% conviction rate.

Furthermore, Patrick's anecdote hardly seems like BS to me. One of the reasons I feel so strongly about this topic is that a similar fate befell a friend of mine as well. He also lost his job after being released. Try even getting a day or two off from your company if it's not a scheduled holiday without getting into your bosses bad books. What was even worse was that he was locked up for a week before he could even get word out that he had been arrested since he was alone when he was picked up. So, his friends, family, company, no one knew where he was.

I don't think this is a rampant problem in the Japanese legal system. The fact that any of these stories exist bothers me. I also see a lot of potential for abuse in a system with very little over-sight.
Patrick Smash at 09:50 PM JST - 24th May

Nigelboy

I'm not surprised you don't believe me. You have never lived in Japan, and you have no Japan experience. You just research government statistics, and listen to the opinions of your J-girl eh. People who live here for long periods often know people this has happened to, which is why they balk at the scholarly line you quote. All you can do is call them liars, because you truly know nothing about the place first hand.

Thundercat, I also know three foreigners this has happened to. It's standard MO. They get no right to a phonecall, so they just go missing. None of them had wives looking for them, so it's a few days before anyone gets worried and starts searching. By then the person has already been fired, even though nigelboy will find a sub-section of a law somewhere proving this to be impossible.

Two of these foreigners were arrested for fighting, but they termed it self-defence. The other was never told the reason he was arrested. They were all freed once they had agreed to pay various amounts of compensation and other monies, having signed forms they couldn't read.

I find this system abhorrent. If people don't sign, they have 23 days in the holding area with a wash every third day, nothing to do, almost nothing to eat, and the knowledge that if they go to court, they will be found guilty of something by a judge who has never ruled anyone not guilty. Charming isn't it.
nigelboy at 09:48 AM JST - 25th May

Great. More of "friend of mine..." rhetoric.

You have never lived in Japan, and you have no Japan experience.

Seriously, Patrick. Seriously.
Patrick Smash at 01:03 PM JST - 25th May

Experiences and knowledge that you might have had if you had lived in Japan a long period of time and knew a lot of people. Especially if you spent a large chunk of it in charge of a couple of hundred foreigners.

But no. Obviously sub section 312.4 on page 653 is far more believable. You really are manual-dori, you ought to live here.
sentello_23 at 03:06 AM JST - 26th May

yes
netrek at 07:57 AM JST - 26th May

If he was caught in the US with that much cocaine under federal law he would have gotten automatic life in prison. No freedom ater 14 or 11 years. I'm surprised his sentence is so light!
electric2004 at 02:02 AM JST - 28th May

Too bad, I tried to post a connection to Narita officials planting narcotic, and it got deleted. Then JT published it itself - well later. Good job!
monkeymagic at 06:52 AM JST - 28th May

It seems that some of the posters here are not aware of the controversy regarding Baker's case, which was a major topic of discussion on Japan Today's forum and was highlighted in several articles and commentaries in Metropolis magazine.

While it is better that Baker is now closer to his family, sympathy for his situation, much of which was manufactured by Baker's supporters, should not cloud the actual facts of the case.

The major problem with Baker's story was that his claim to have come to Japan on the "trip of a lifetime" was invalidated by new information that showed that he had already been to Japan, just two months before his arrest. This led to further revalations, including documents released by Baker's own defense which showed, amongst other things, that he was threatened by members of the Israeli Mafia before he got on the plane.

Baker's own MP also disavowed him stating that the facts of the case did not match the impression given by the support group.

You can read more about the actual details of the case at http://www.markdevlin.com/NickBaker/thenickbakerdeception.htm