|
|
 |
| |
Joe Mendy with his mother Kay |
Student in extradition fight after hols mix-up
He’s at college four years later when police knock at his door
A CAREFREE lads’ holiday in Spain four years ago that ended a nightmare has returned to haunt a Camden Town student.
When he was just 19, Joe Mendy and two friends went on a two-week trip to Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. But on the last days of their sunkissed adventure, the party turned to tears when they were arrested for using counterfeit money.
The trio were found with 200 Euros worth of fake cash, which officers claimed they had printed and knowingly spent.
Last month Joe, now 22, was working on an essay in his bedroom when he heard a knock on the door, and found a team of officers outside when he opened it. He was arrested, held in a cell overnight and taken to court the following morning. His parents, who have lived in their Leybourne Street council home for nearly 30 years, had to pay £1,000 to free him. Politicians – including Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank Dobson – have vowed to intervene. A month since the surprise bang on the door, Joe has had to give up his college course, his girlfriend, a regular gig Dj-ing in a local bar – and maybe hopes of ever getting to university. It is unclear why the Spanish authorities have decided to take action now. Scotland Yard said it was acting on a request from police in the Canary Islands and could not comment on the case further.
Joe faces up to three years in prison should he be found guilty, warn solicitors, and he is almost certain to be extradited next week when a judge at Horseferry Road Magistrates’ Court in Westminster hears his case.
Joe, a former Haverstock schoolboy who hopes to study psychology and criminology in September, has been offered places at six different universities. One day he wants to work for the Home Office counselling convicts.
He said: “I think it’s a joke. For them to extradite me is going to cost thousands of pounds in legal fees – over £100 worth of fake money. It’s a nightmare, I just want to wake up and for it to be over.
“I could go to jail over something I didn’t do – or didn’t know I’d done. Just having to go to another country to stand trial on my own – I just went on holiday to have a good time. It’s crazy. I haven’t been on holiday since.”
Joe claims there were rumours of fake money circulating in the resort at the time and also believes they could have been duped by a Scottish middle-aged man that gave them his left-over cash when he headed home after a holiday.
When Joe and his friends were arrested they were held in a police cell for nearly 50 hours and only given one bottle of water and a bread roll. He claims a policeman warned him he would spend a hellish eight years in jail being abused because he is black.
Joe is alone in facing the charges now because his two friends were not re-arrested. His solicitors do not know why the case has been revived, although they suspect Spanish police may have lost their original paperwork. His mother, Kay Mendy, a council-employed childminder, said her son has been devastated by the shock. She said: “It could happen to anyone. To go to all this trouble for 200 Euro. You could make a film out of it and people wouldn’t believe it.”
Camden Town Councillor Pat Callaghan became involved after hearing Joe’s plight. She said: “I’ve known Joe a long time and he’s never been in trouble. They’re a really nice family.”
MP Frank Dobson has asked the Spanish ambassador to intervene in Joe’s case. He said: “If the facts are as Joe says then it is the most extraordinary situation. He has been singled out – they have sought him out years afterwards as if he is some international criminal. It does seem to be unfair and grotesquely disproportionate.”
Solicitor Saima Hirji, from Fair Trials Abroad, said: “I think it’s very unfair. He’s absolutely terrified. Twenty-two years old, about to start university and now he’s facing jail.” |
 |
|
| |
|
|
|
