A British tourist has told of the hell he endured on holiday after being arrested in Tunisia when clumsy police mistook him for a convicted cigarette smuggler.
James Colley, 57, known as Jim, travelled on a package holiday to the North African nation with his wife Louise Colley, 51, on August 2 to celebrate his retirement.
But he was questioned by armed police upon arrival at Enfidha-Hammamet international airport and then ordered to appear before a court in the capital, Tunis.
A bewildered Jim later learned that police were actually looking for a man named James Coyle, who was convicted in absentia of smuggling cigarettes into the country in 2012.
The panicked couple spent the rest of their holiday battling the baffling accusations.
They had to pay another £800 for three eight-hour round trips to Tunisia and legal fees.
James Colley, 57, known as Jim, travelled on a package holiday to the North African nation with his wife Louise Colley, 51, on August 2 to celebrate his retirement.
He was questioned by armed police upon arrival at Enfidha-Hammamet international airport and then ordered to appear before a court in the capital, Tunis.
When Jim finally appeared before a judge on the last day of his “vacation,” the case against him was dismissed in a matter of seconds because the charges were “too old.”
Father-of-three Jim commented on his ordeal: “We still don’t know if it was a scam to make money. Were the police involved? The passport people?
“I’m a pretty calm person, but honestly, don’t argue with someone who has a gun. You have no idea. Are they trigger-happy? It was absolutely terrifying.”
“I’ve never had any mental health issues in my life, but honestly, this was mentally exhausting.”
Louise, a community nurse who was by Jim’s side during his “holiday from hell”, has now warned Brits not to head to Tunisia.
She said: ‘Don’t go. It sounds terrible because there are nice people there, but it’s not safe. I don’t think it’s safe for any British tourist to go there at the moment.
“It could have been our kids. They could have been on holiday and it could have happened to them. They might not have coped as well as we did.
“We didn’t know if Jim was going to get locked up or what the hell was going to happen.”
“It was absolutely terrifying. It should never have happened. I don’t know why they bothered us. There is total corruption there.”
The couple, from Newcastle, booked their week-long holiday package after Jim retired as a Nissan car plant worker earlier this year.
They paid £1,400 to stay at the five-star El Mouradi hotel in Mahdia.
But they were never able to enjoy its facilities after Jim was detained by police at the airport and questioned for about four hours.
The couple, from Newcastle, booked their week-long holiday package after Jim retired as a Nissan car plant worker earlier this year.
He said: ‘They took my passport away again and again and asked us the same two questions: Had I been to Tunisia before and where did I work?
“I said I’d only been there once on my honeymoon in 2009. They didn’t believe us and said, ‘You’ve been there before.'”
‘They had guns, and you don’t argue with someone who has a gun.
“Then they brought in an interpreter who basically told him, ‘You’re going to receive an invitation to appear in court.'”
Jim and Louise arrived at their hotel in the early hours of 3 August after being forced to pay £95 for a local taxi ride.
On August 5 at 4am, they paid a local man to drive them four hours along the Trans-African Highway in a battered VW Polo to Tunis for their court appearance.
James recalled how the building looked like a “1960s bank,” with “paper files piled up everywhere” and all the staff smoking.
After arriving, he was presented with a court document that strangely incorrectly named him as ‘James Coyle’.
Jim added: ‘In this court they asked me: ‘English?’ I said yes. And then they said: ‘You have to sign this’… But I had the wrong name.’
‘They took us into another room and there was a senior guy there who said, ‘So you’re innocent? ‘ I thought that was the end of it.
“But he told me: ‘You have to come to the police station tomorrow to hand in this form.’ I asked him where the police station was. I was in Tunisia again.”
The couple went to the stifling local police station the next day, and James was told he was due to appear before a judge in court on August 8.
A local English-speaking lawyer, whom they turned to, first said he could represent them in court for £530.
But they then hired the services of another lawyer for £130 after slapping a court usher for his help, they claim, and appeared before a panel of judges.
Jim, fearful, said he was unsure how the case would play out and was deeply worried he could be fined or end up in prison.
Jim added: “I was sitting in the public gallery. There were three judges.
‘The doors were opened from the side and prisoners were dragged from the jails to the lower floor, handcuffed.
‘Our driver came to interpret for us and said: ‘This man tried to have sex with a woman when she didn’t want to, this man hit his mother.’
‘I was last, even though we had paid the usher to come in first.
“I had to stand with my hands behind my back and my head bowed in front of these three judges. There were police officers with their guns.
‘They called my name, so I stood up and the lawyers stood up.’
Jim, fearful, said he was unsure how the case would go and was deeply worried he could be fined or end up in prison.
But, she said, 30 seconds later, one of the judges “waved his hand in the air” and an usher came over and whispered, “It’s over, you’re free to go.”
The stunned couple later learned from their hastily assembled legal team that the case should never have gone forward because of the age of the crime.
Jim said: ‘Basically what they knew from the start was that the case was for cigarette smuggling in 2012. This James Coyle was convicted in absentia.
“Because the case was more than five years old, they dismissed it anyway, not because it was even me, but because of mistaken identity.”
The Tunisian Embassy in London has been contacted for comment.
