Aussie tourist faces prison after drunken prank

Australian woman Annice Smoel is in jail in Thailand after allegedly stealing a bar mat which friends said they put into her bag. She has been charged with theft by night. Photo / Supplied

CANBERRA - What appears to have been a drunken ballroom prank that rapidly escalated and allegedly involved attempted bribery could put an Australian woman behind bars in Thailand.

In yet another case of a petty incident abroad turning deadly serious, Melbourne mother-of-four Annice Smoel, 36, is on bail awaiting trial for the theft of a A$60 bar mat from a Phuket hotel.

She has been charged with theft by night, which carries a jail sentence of up to five years.

Last year a Melbourne writer, Harry Nicolaides, 41, was jailed for three years in Thailand for insulting King Bhumibol Adulydej in a paragraph of a novel that had sold only seven copies of a print run of 50.

He was freed and sent home in February after a royal pardon.

In Kuwait, Sydney mother-of-seven Nasrah Alshamery, 43, was arrested last December and held in jail awaiting trial on a charge of insulting ruler Sheikh Sabah IV Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah during a fracas between family members and security officers at the Gulf state's airport.

The Foreign Affairs Department, which is providing consular help to Smoel, warns travelling Australians to obey all local laws.

"If you are arrested or jailed, the Australian Government will do what it can to help you but we can't get you out of trouble or out of jail."

In the year to last June, consular officials were called to help 970 Australians arrested overseas. A total of 211 Australians were in foreign jails.

Smoel's problems began when she was celebrating her mother's 60th birthday in Phuket's Aussie Hotel.

She told Melbourne Radio 3AW that she had been arrested after friends put the bar mat into her handbag without her knowledge, and that police had video evidence of the truth.

"I've been held here for something I didn't do," she said.

She said that her friends had later confessed to police and apologised, but had been told to go away.

The Melbourne Age said the friends had later made a statutory declaration to Victorian police, detailing a "silly joke" that had backfired.

Smoel told Radio 3AW that her passport had been confiscated pending a trial that could take 14 weeks to begin, and that she was afraid she would not see her daughters - aged 6, 8, 11 and 12 - for years.

News.com.au reported that husband Darren Smoel had admitted the family had offered money to Thai authorities. It had been refused.

Aussie Hotel owner Steve Wood, who did not press charges, said Smoel had brought much of her trouble upon her own shoulders.

He said undercover police in the bar had only wanted to "chastise" Smoel and let her go, but she had run off and had been chased down the beach.

"When they took her back to the police station she continued to abuse everyone ... including the chief of police, and I think this is what the problem is," Wood said.

"It's more of an attitude problem than a crime problem."