MCCLAY IN BID FOR WOMAN'S PARDON

Commissioner for Children Roger McClay is trying to get a pardon for a
Wainuiomata grandmother serving 35 years in a Thai jail for smuggling
heroin, but needs the Government's help.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Helen Clark said yesterday that she knew
little about the case but would ask for more details.

In 1996, 38-year-old mother-of-three Phyllis Tarawhiti was sentenced to death.

But the Bangkok court commuted the sentence to 50 years in prison, because
Tarawhiti had pleaded guilty to trying to smuggle 250g of heroin, with a
street value of $4 million, out of Thailand.

In 1997, after a third appeal, her sentence was reduced to 35 years. She
remains incarcerated at Bangkok's Lad Yao Women's Correction Centre.

At the trial she was described as a "small player" who had naively been
persuaded to carry drugs across a border.

Educated at Victoria University, Tarawhiti told the court she had fallen
into drug smuggling after a relationship break-up. She also had money problems.

Her children are now aged 18, 20, and 25.

Mr McClay, speaking yesterday for the first time about the bid, said he was
undertaking it with Tarawhiti's family as a New Zealand citizen, not the
Commissioner for Children.

He had visited Tarawhiti twice in jail, after New Zealand Embassy staff in
Bangkok had mentioned her case to him.

Mr McClay said conditions in the jail, which was built for 2000 but housed
4000, were not good and Tarawhiti would be better off in a prison here.

- - NZPA