By Nicole Mc Donald

The image of St Lucia appears to have been tarnished by a story circulating online news sources that a British couple who were vacationing here were held in police custody for two days, then released after it was discovered it was a case of mistaken identity.

Anthony and Pauline Griffin had booked their three-week stay at an all-inclusive resort but according to reports they never got there. They landed in St Lucia on October 14 at the Hewannorra International Airport but were stopped by immigration officers and taken to the Vieux Fort Police Station where they were held in separate cells. By the couple’s account they had not been allowed to contact the local British High Commission. The local police claimed that there was an international warrant out for Anthony Griffin for stealing antiquities from Egypt. But as would later be confirmed by Interpol the warrant was for another man with the same name and date of birth.

According to a BBC News online report Anthony Griffin is a former police officer and was appalled by what he and his wife were subjected to while detained in St Lucia for two days. The 65-year-old man who hails from Gillingham, according to the BBC report, “had paid £3,500 for the luxury holiday which he booked for his wife, Pauline, also 65, who had recently lost her mother.”

The Daily Mail quoted Mr Griffin as saying he was told by an immigration officer: “I have to inform you that the Egyptian government has issued a warrant for your arrest for stealing antiquities.” Mr Griffin said the officer kept “saying we had to get back on the plane and fly home, but we had spent £3,500 on this holiday and I wasn’t just going to give up.

“At no stage did I think they were going to put me in prison, I thought they were going to just make inquiries and then find out they were wrong,” Griffin told the BBC. The former British detective said he was held in a cell with an alleged murderer and suspected rapist.  “The conditions were horrendous,” Griffin told BBC. “At the airport we had asked to speak to someone at the British Embassy, but nothing ever happened with that. We also asked to speak to our daughter as she’s a lawyer, but they wouldn’t let us speak to anyone. My wife was very distraught; there were no toilet facilities in the cells and we had to give the police officers money to go out and buy us food.”

In a video on the BBC website Mrs Griffin says she could not stop crying.  “I am usually quite a strong person. I just kept thinking this can’t be happening and I am gonna wake up in a minute and this will just be a nightmare . . . but it wasn’t and two days felt like two months,” she said. Mr Griffin said that his cell was also infested with cockroaches and rats.  “The treatment we received was diabolical. I was frightened to death and my wife was shaking with fear,” he told KentOnline.

The couple were sent back to the UK and it appears they were let into the country without incident. Mr Griffin told KentOnline that he and his wife had visited the Egyptian Embassy in London since their return in October, and had also been in contact with Kent Police and Interpol who told him of the true nature of the warrant. The report went on: “Mr Griffin said it was unlikely they would get money back from insurers, they could not afford to sue the St Lucian government and had been left £3,500 out of pocket.”

Meanwhile the website also quotes a spokeswoman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who said: “It was our understanding that Mr and Mrs Griffin would be deported from St Lucia on the return flight to the UK; we subsequently learnt that this was not the case. Mr and Mrs Griffin were not allowed to contact the British High Commission while being held and we recognise the distress they may have suffered because of this. We have asked that the St Lucian authorities ensure procedures are in place to inform us of any British Nationals being detained. We continue to provide Mr Griffin with consular assistance in the UK.”

The couple now wants the St Lucia government to pay them back the cost of their vacation. Meanwhile police officials here have told a different story of what happened with the couple. A high-ranking police officer told the STAR that the police had followed procedure.  “This is a clear example of making a mountain out of a molehill,” he said. “Based on the information the immigration officers had they acted correctly. The procedure is that we can refuse people entry into our country for certain reasons. The plan was to send

Mr Griffin and his wife back to the UK immediately but he became aggressive and the airline refused to take him back on the flight; that is when he was taken to Vieux Fort police station.” Regarding the conditions faced by the couple at the station the officer told the STAR that the Vieux Fort police station is “newly built and if it is already infested we are in serious trouble.”  Not exactly the sympathetic response the couple was looking for, is it? The STAR also tried to get a comment from tourism officials but that proved futile.