OUR CHILD IS INNOCENT

The family and a friend of a young SA woman imprisoned in a Thai jail on drugs charges speak to YOU

- JANA VAN DER MERWE

IT WAS meant to be the adventure of a lifetime – travelling to an exotic country, living and working there and meeting new and interesting people. Ashley Oosthuizen, who’d just turned 19, had matriculated with several distinctions from Hoërskool Outeniqua in George and planned to teach English to Thai children.

Her dream came true – but after falling for an older American man she ended up being sentenced to life in prison and is now sharing a cell with more than 60 convicts.

Ashley’s world collapsed in August last year when a Thai court convicted her of drug possession and international drug trafficking after she signed for a package delivered to the coffee shop where she was working. Not for a second did Ashley (now 23) believe she’d be convicted. It was all a big misunderstanding – she had nothing to do with drugs.

“After I heard the words ‘life in prison’, my whole world went dark. Why has God forsaken me?” Ashley wrote in a letter to her mom back home in George shortly after her sentencing.

Her divorced parents, Lynn Blignaut and André Oosthuizen, and friends all say the same thing: Ashley’s problems started when she became involved with Tristan Nettles (34), a self-confessed drug dealer.

Now the family are desperately trying to prove Ashley’s innocence and get her back home. Lynn will never forget the day she heard her daughter had been arrested. Tristan had sent a WhatsApp to André, who forwarded the message to her.

She breaks down as she recalls that heartrending moment. “From the very start I thought it was all a lie. I know this man manipulated her,” she says.