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DARK PARADISE

Gordon, word spread like wildfire in Kerobokan Prison that the new inmate’s brother was chef to the Queen of England — not quite accurate, but close enough. Ronnie might not have had a yacht or an aeroplane, but his brother might, and that was good enough.

With his piercing blue eyes, Ronnie was the image of his famous brother, despite his rake-thin, drug-ravaged body and sickly appearance being the antithesis of marathon-fit Gordon. But for all the potential cash his capture could create for the Balinese judiciary, nobody was getting anything, because Gordon had cut ties with his addict brother. Ronnie had no line to his brother’s fortune and almost no cash.

Heroin addict Ronnie, 38, faces ten years in a grim Balinese jail after being found slumped in a public toilet on the island, clutching a syringe and a £10 wrap of the killer drug. The walls of the toilet are smeared with faeces and crude graffiti. A bloodstained bandage lies discarded on the floor. Only a truly desperate man would consider even stepping inside, let alone rolling up a trouser leg to inject his feet with street-bought smack.

– Sunday Mirror, 11 March 2007

Gordon was refusing to send cash, having reportedly already spent £300,000 to help Ronnie try to kick drugs. So Ronnie and his lawyer started a shame campaign, pleading through the media outside Denpasar court for his brother to send him cash.

‘I told him, “Gordon, please help me. I have no one else to turn to.” It has been made painfully clear to me — with a lawyer I could be out in a few months, but without one I will be left to rot in this hellhole for the full ten years. I could die in here . . .’

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