Cameron Bradford, a 21-year-old mother of one, was detained in Munich, Germany on suspicion of smuggling cannabis – she’s the latest young British woman to now be charged overseas
Another young British woman has been charged overseas for allegedly smuggling cannabis from Thailand.
Cameron Bradford, 21, was detained in Munich Airport when she went to collect her luggage. The mother of one had travelled to Thailand on her own, according to a family friend. Bradford’s family was alerted to her disappearance when she did not return to Heathrow Airport as expected. They then filed a missing persons report.
It’s understood Bradford, from Knebworth in Hertfordshire, changed her flight to Munich at the last minute – which German authorities were alerted to as a red flag. She could face around months behind bars in a German jail while the origin of the drugs is investigated.
Bradford, who has a young son, will next appear at Munich District Court on August 6. She remains in custody in Munich until at least that hearing.
“We can confirm that we are conducting proceedings in this matter,” said the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office’s chief prosecutor Anne Leiding, according to The Sun. “The defendant is still in custody.”
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “We are supporting a British woman who is detained in Germany and are in contact with her family and the local authorities.”
There are currently no details from the prosecution regarding the charges or potential trial date. Germany legalised cannabis for recreational use by adults last year, but this does not extend to non-residents.
Bradford is the latest in a number of young British women to have been arrested in connection with drug-related offences. It emerged this week that Nottinghamshire model Clara Wilson, 36, was charged with a drug running offence after more than 34 kilos of cannabis were found in her suitcase at Barcelona’s El Prat airport.
It is not yet clear how she intends pleading and whether she will try to strike a pre-trial plea bargain deal in the hope of getting more lenient treatment. Under Spanish law the British model can be held for up to two years in prison before she has to be bailed, but well-placed sources said they expected her to be tried later this year.
Brits Bella May Culley, 18, Charlotte May Lee, 21, and Isabella Daggett, 21, are all facing lengthy prison sentences in harsh overseas prisons if they are convicted of drug smuggling. Bella, 18, was the first hit the headlines following her arrest in Georgia. She flew into the former Soviet state from Thailand on May 11.
She faces a lengthy spell behind bars if found guilty — which could be life if she receives a severe sentence. Little is still known about how she came to be caught at Tblisi Airport after her family reported her missing in Thailand.
Charlotte arrived in Sri Lanka again from Thailand on May 12, allegedly with a stash of cannabis in her luggage valued at £1.2million which she denied knowing anything about. She has been in custody since she was arrested at Bandaranaike Airport.
And Isabella Daggett, 21, is another alleged drug mule who is being held in a hellhole Dubai prison where she has not been able to shower or change clothes. Her case has been highlighted by her family after she was arrested in March, just five weeks after moving to the United Arab Emirates for work.
She was working for a businessman doing internet recruiting for construction sites in the UK and he offered to send her to the Middle East for a similar role. But police in Dubai allegedly arrested her along with another man not long after she arrived in Dubai.
Her family insist she was taken by police simply for being “in the wrong place at the wrong time” and has never used drugs. And she has not taken a shower or even changed her clothes in months after being banged up in a prison in March, her family claims.
Her grandmother Heather Smith told the DailyMail: “She was arrested with a lad, who was not her boyfriend, with whom she was staying because things had fallen through with another house. She didn’t really like him that much. He may be guilty of something, but she isn’t. We told Bella before she went to Dubai, ‘you know the rules in Dubai, play by the rules, don’t flaunt this, don’t do that’.” All the women deny the charges against them.