A British mother facing execution in Malaysia was force-fed heroin and held hostage by her husband when she threatened to leave him, her family said on Friday.
Shivaun Orton, 41, was arrested for drugs trafficking after police found £16,000 (about R170 000) of cannabis, amphetamine, ecstasy and heroin in a raid on a holiday resort the couple run.
Tomorrow she will learn what charges she faces when she appears before a court for the first time. Possession or dealing of cannabis, amphetamine and ecstasy carries a life sentence in Malaysia, but possession of more than 15 grams of heroin carries the death penalty. Police seized 225 grams of the drug in the raid.
Her family told the Mail that Miss Orton - the daughter of a leading British nuclear physicist - was not a drug dealer, but instead was being controlled by her husband, Malaysian Abdul Harris Fadilah, 46.
He got her addicted to heroin when she threatened to leave him and bring their two teenage sons, aged 14 and 16, home to the UK, they said.
Miss Orton’s older sister, Stephanie Hiscox, 48, said: “She has been a hostage not a drug dealer. If someone is imprisoned and drugged so they cannot escape then they are not to blame - she she was drugged, beaten and abused.”
Her brother Daniel, 30, added: “She’s been a victim in this scenario. She is not the villain she has been made out to be.”
Miss Orton grew up in the Welsh coastal town of Harlech, but had lived in Malaysia for 15 years.
Police claim she and her husband had been supplying drugs to tourists at their beach resort in Cherating.
The Foreign Office said last night it was providing assistance to Miss Orton.