An Urgent Case:

We Need to Avoid

a Miscarriage of

Justice in Thailand

Bangkok, Thailand.  photo by Alejandro Cartagena 🇲🇽 on Unsplash

Ray Casey

8 March 2025

A shocking series of events has befallen an elderly Teesside couple. A couple who retired to a dream home in the Tropics. That dream home soon turned into a nightmare, and the nightmare is about to get a lot worse.

How did this happen?

As Mary Byrne contemplated the end of a long career as a nurse at James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough, she dreamed, as many do, of retirement to warmer climes. Right to the end, she’d volunteered to work on a Covid ward at the height of the 2020 pandemic, finally retiring in June of that year. 

Mary Byrne in 2020

A tropical paradise

Mary’s husband, Des, had already retired from Ineos in Seal Sands, and together they’d saved enough money to build a home in a tropical paradise. A ‘Land of Smiles’ that many of us have visited and grown to love, just as Mary and Des did many times over the preceding years. That paradise was Thailand, one of the world’s top ten retirement destinations.

Paradise Lost

Mary and Des relocated from Stainton-in-Cleveland to Hua Hin in central Thailand in November 2021.  However, their newly built property hit a lot of snags, especially with the developer, and they weren’t able to move in until March 2022. But then, on 11 September 2022, the situation suddenly deteriorated

The neighbour from hell

Mary and Des returned from a sightseeing trip to discover that large holes had been knocked through their garden wall, and developers were building an access road across their property to a new villa. The villa was being built for a UK national, and his Thai wife, who had recently immigrated from Turkey. It later transpired that the same property developer had made a secret deal with them to build their new villa, including an access road, regardless of the severe loss of amenity that would be incurred by Mary and Des.

Attempted arbitration

The property developer then threatened to cut off Mary and Des’ water supply. A local estate agent agreed to mediate in what was becoming a bitter dispute. But suddenly the local police started questioning the estate agent, a UK national, about the validity of his visa. This was nothing less than a veiled threat of deportation (Neither the property developer nor the estate agent can be named in this article due to Thai defamation law).

Intimidation

Life slowly got worse for Mary and Des Byrne throughout 2023. Their neighbours owned five vehicles, and started using the cars to block road access to the Byrne’s property. Des left some polite notes on the cars, asking the couple to move them. Their neighbours responded by reporting the matter to the police. On 27 September, their gardener covered the Byrne family front garden with gravel. When Mary and Des removed the gravel, the neighbours reported this to the police too.

Out of control

Two days after that seemingly minor incident involving gravel, it became apparent that the situation was escalating. The neighbour reversed his Isuzu Trooper at speed towards Mary and Des as they worked on their garden, stopping only centimetres away from them. Mary and Des installed a CCTV camera to try to prevent recurrence of this incident. The neighbour immediately began to tamper with the CCTV camera, then reported Mary and Des to the police for spying. 

Mob handed

Fifteen police officers then showed up at the family house. Police officers later suggested that Mary and Des pay them in the form of a monthly subscription to a better police service. This is known as a ‘Red Box’ scheme, and is common in parts of Thailand.

A violent assault

At 11:30am on 19 September 2023, the neighbours showed up at Mary and Des’ garden ostensibly with a view to damaging it for a second time. The Byrnes tried to reason with them but to no avail.  Both Des and Mary were violently assaulted by their neighbours, both their junior by about 27 years and both experienced Thai kickboxers. Mary and Des were no match for this. Here are photographs of their facial injuries sustained in the assault:

Mary and Des Byrne after the assault

Aftermath

Des and Mary called the police 12 times for assistance, but the police hung up on them each time. It is important to note here that the police DID attend the perpetrators of the assault, and also their relative who had filmed it, immediately after the attack. Des and Mary were finally taken to hospital. Des’ facial wounds were obvious, but there were also injuries to his lower back and wrist. Mary was suffering from chest and head pains. A later scan revealed a bleed to Mary’s brain. Their neighbours later also attended hospital, but records of their injuries have not been made available, despite several requests for these records.

Accomplice

The assault had been filmed by a relative of the neighbours. Commentary and sub-titles that were subsequently added to the recording give the impression that the incident had been a mere dispute between neighbours. The neighbours claimed that it took them five days to recover from the ‘fight’. They also visited the Hua Hin immigration office.  The Byrne family lawyer believes that the purpose of this visit was to submit complaints against Mary and Des in order to press Immigration officials to deport them, as they had openly threatened several times in the months before the assault.

An evil plot

Des and Mary continued to suffer severe pain as a result of the assault.  Mary thought she may die due to the levels of pain and support from local medical facilities was limited. However, it soon became apparent to the Byrne family that there was something more sinister in the offing.  They had asked the police to investigate their assault but, on 29 December, they were advised by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to move away from their home for their own safety for fear of a violent backlash from their neighbours.

Travesty of justice

On 28 May 2024, 25 weeks after the assault, Mary and Des were arrested and charged with assaulting their neighbours. This case will be heard on Wednesday 12 March 2025. The Byrne family are facing certain jail time if found guilty. As a result of the assault, Mary has lost 40% of her heart function while Des is exhibiting symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. 

What happens now?

Mary’s siblings, Tim and Jane Maley, along with a wider support network, have been rallying as much support as possible to bring pressure on the Thai authorities to avoid a grave miscarriage of justice.  However, to the shame of many of the parties involved, support in the UK has been sadly lacking.

Politicians

The Byrne family lived in the Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland constituency prior to emigrating to Thailand. The former MP, Simon Clarke, informed the family that the case was beyond his jurisdiction, and advised them to hire a private lawyer. Clarke’s successor, Luke Myer, hasn’t been so dismissive, but his engagement with the case has not yet produced the hope-for result. 

Foreign Office

The Byrne family was unable to contact David Cameron, the former Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs. Similarly his successor David Lammy. However, cases of this nature would usually be dealt with by David Lammy’s junior minister the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the FCDO. That minister has proved to be particularly elusive, however. 

Dogsbody

After several attempts to contact the Under Secretary, Mary’s brother Tim received the following reply from her Senior Parliamentary Assistant:

‘Thank you for your email. As you have written to [Catherine West, the Under Secretary’s] parliamentary office, she is unable to take on your case as a non-constituent. However, you can get in touch with the FCDO directly using the general enquiries details (link). Alternatively you can ask your local MP to make direct representation.’

Sir Humphrey

 While the response sounds plausible, the email is actually just one example of 10 months of obfuscation and non-engagement from the FCDO. Tim Maley has spoken to civil servants who have confirmed that it is FCDO policy not to provide the email addresses and telephone numbers of officials wherever possible, so he could not make direct contact through the FCDO. 

On a wider scale, diplomacy can be considered to be a chess game. There may be reasons why the British authorities wouldn’t want to provoke an ‘incident’ with their Thai counterparts. But we need to set aside the niceties now. Mary and Des Byrne are facing a long time in jail. Given their mental and physical condition, it would be no exaggeration to describe it as effectively a death sentence.

Time is tight

Speaking as a personal friend of Tim, I would encourage anybody reading this to urgently contact their MP, or even the Prime Minister’s office, to try to bring pressure to bear on the Thai authorities in order to ensure that justice is done.