DRUG WOMAN TRIES TO BEAT THAI JAIL HELL

PERTH heroin addict Holly Deane-Johns hopes to be a guinea pig for the more
lenient treatment of drug offenders in Thailand.

She has said she would plead guilty to three heroin offences in Bangkok
next Tuesday and will petition Thailand's judiciary to accept a radical
plan to free her from jail.

Perth-based Brian Haffenden will fly to Thailand on Saturday to urge the
court to accept detoxification treatment as an alternative to prison.

He says 29-year-old Ms Deane-Johns should undergo six months of
drug-cleansing treatment in Thamkrabok monastery, north of Bangkok, instead
of a heavy prison sentence.

"I would say she could be taken home to Perth to get her life together if
she goes well during the six months in the monastery," Mr Haffenden said.

"But she should have a sentence hanging over her head. And if she steps out
of line, she gets the sentence."

Mr Haffenden founded the Perth-based Thamkrabok Foundation which arranges
treatment for drug addicts in the Thai monastery in Saraburi province,
130km north of Bangkok.

He said if the plan was successful, Ms Deane-Johns would be a torchbearer
for a new approach by the Thai judiciary towards drug addicts.

She would receive a herbal medicine treatment for addiction while remaining
a prisoner.

Mr Haffenden said the typical penalty for drug offences in Thailand was 50
years.

"Her life would be ruined," he said. "But at the age of 29 she is worth
another chance, another throw of the dice."

The three charges she faced could also earn her a death sentence, though it
was unlikely she would be executed, he said.

Ms Deane-Johns wrote to Mr Haffenden, 66, of Riverton, last month. It is
understood a defence lawyer has been arranged for her court appearance but
Mr Haffenden will make the submission about the detox plan.

Mr Haffenden underwent surgery last week for damaged tendons in his left
arm received after he fell and hit a kerb during a visit to Ms Deane-Johns
in a Bangkok prison last November.

Ms Deane-Johns was arrested in August with former New South Wales man
Robert Halliwell and held on suspicion of exporting 15g of heroin through
the post to Australia.

Mr Haffenden is aware Ms Deane-Johns served five years for drug-related
offences in Bandyup Prison.

"She didn't have a chance in life from day one," he said. "The fact that it
was her own mother who introduced her to drugs doesn't speak too much about
her chances.

"Holly was unable to break her addiction even when her own mother died of
an overdose."