ACT OF LOVE - DRUG DISCIPLINE

WHEN Perry Jewell found his drug-addicted daughter Samantha on the streets
of Kings Cross it was the end of his desperate three-month search.

Mr Jewell devised a plan to kidnap his 19-year-old daughter and personally
help her beat her heroin and cocaine addiction.

He drove Samantha to a house in rural NSW and began to give her
detoxification drugs prescribed by a doctor.

For 10 days and nights in March, he slept at the foot of her bed as she went
through withdrawal.

Mr Jewell thought he was winning the battle - until she drugged him, fled
the farmhouse and went to a police station. Yesterday Mr Jewell was in Glen
Innes Local Court on charges of assaulting and kidnapping Samantha.

But as he left court cleared of the charges, Mr Jewell said his attempt to
stop Samantha's $3000-a-day habit, prostitution and sleeping on Sydney
trains, would resume immediately.

"This is not the end, only the beginning," Mr Jewell said.

"My daughter still remains in drug bondage. Nothing has been done to help
her and she continues on her path of desolation, despair and
self-destruction.

"For over six months I have been legally prevented from seeing her or
helping her while officialdom stood by and did nothing."

On March 3 this year, Mr Jewell, accompanied by a friend, found Samantha on
a Kings Cross street.

It was the first time Mr Jewell had seen Samantha since he found syringes in
her room after she left the family's Toowoomba home at Christmas last year.

After persuading Samantha to get in his car, Mr Jewell and friend Mark Hogg
drove for eight hours to the isolated farmhouse near Glen Innes.

"I heard about this farmhouse near Glen Innes through a friend of a friend
and when I saw it I knew it was ideal," Mr Jewell said yesterday.

"I consulted a doctor who prescribed me drugs that would help Samantha
through her detoxification. I thought if I could get her up here into the
fresh air and off the drugs for a while she might have a chance.

"I asked her when she first got into the car at Kings Cross would she give
it two weeks.

"She agreed and while we drove to the property she fell asleep with her head
on my shoulder."

At the farmhouse as Mr Jewell gave her Rohypnol, a drug used to beat heroin
addiction.

Several times he restrained her. At one point, as the detoxification began
to take hold, she tried to burn down the house.

Mr Jewell's son Wayne committed suicide eight years and he was frightened
Samantha might kill herself.

But there were positive signs. They played poker one night for 12 hours.

Samantha started eating. Her physical appearance improved. "She was very ill
but towards the end I thought she was coming good," he said. "She was eating
a little bit and I think she was really trying hard."

Mr Jewell now knows Samantha drugged him on the night of March 12 with
Rohypnol.

He woke about 5am to find her gone and immediately rang Glen Innes police
worried she could be lost in the bush.

A police officer told him Samantha was at the station.

"I agreed to an interview but thought they were only questioning me to help
Samantha," Mr Jewell said.

On the afternoon of March 13 Mr Jewell, after more than three hours of
questioning, was charged with kidnapping and assaulting Samantha, despite
constant protests he was trying to save her life.

Yesterday in Glen Innes local court the charges were withdrawn on the advice
of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The court heard Samantha's decision not to proceed or give evidence against
her father resulted in the matters being dropped. Charges of kidnapping
against Mr Jewell's co-accused, Mr Hogg, also were withdrawn.

An apprehended domestic violence order which prevented Mr Jewell from
approaching Samantha was withdrawn.

Outside the court Mr Jewell said Samantha left the family home in Toowoomba
in September last year to move to Sydney.

His daughter's addiction, she told him, started at age 11 after her
brother's suicide.

Mr Jewell said he and his wife Elizabeth were suspicious she had been taking
drugs. After she returned home at Christmas they found seven used syringes.

Mr Jewell said Samantha telephoned them on several occasions over the next
few months and told them she was living on the streets and sleeping on
trains.

They tried to persuade her to return. She refused.

Mr Jewell, through his own investigation, learned Samantha was an addict and
working as a prostitute in brothels and on the streets.

Samantha herself sought help at a Sydney detoxification centre but lasted
just several days.

On one occasion she told her father her habit cost $3000 a day.

In a recorded interview with Detective Sergeant Cynthia Donovan, Mr Jewell
said Samantha had gone with him of her own will and had not tried to leave
the farm house until that morning.

Mr Jewell pleaded with the detectives: "You should be trying to help me help
her not help her destroy herself."

In Samantha's statement to police on March 13 she admitted she was addicted
to eight drugs including heroin and cocaine.

She told Sgt Donovan that while her father had done the wrong thing she knew
he was just trying to help her.

Mr Jewell intends to establish a national parents action group.

"Within 24 hours of me being charged, Samantha was back on the streets," he
said.

"I don't know if she's dead or alive but I intend to find out."

"I've got to go back and get her. She's all I've got to live for."

Checked-by: Don Beck