College concert to boost Nick campaign (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

College concert to boost Nick campaign

STUDENTS will be hoping to strike a chord by supporting a campaign for justice for convicted drug smuggler Nick Baker.

The former Cirencester chef, aged 32, was jailed for 14 years in June and fined more than £25,000, after he was caught with a suitcase containing £1.4 million of drugs at Tokyo's Narita Airport.

The father-of-one claims, who is currently languishing in a tough Oriental prison, says he was framed and his mother Iris, who lives in Oaksey, has been fighting to secure a fair trial for him.

Now, following an approach by a Cirencester College student, she is organising a concert to boost the campaign coffers.

She said: "My niece Jade Hughes is a student and I want to get youngsters involved because they should know about this.

"If you find yourself in trouble abroad, other people's judicial systems are not like ours. Some of them don't have any human rights."

Nick claims he was framed by travelling companion James Prunier, who he says engineered it so they carried each other's cases through customs.

The allegations are strenuously denied by Prunier, who was himself later arrested for drug trafficking in Belgium.

Nick's campaigners, including MEP Baroness Sarah Ludford and the international Fair Trials Abroad charity, have been lobbying the authorities and are concerned about the conditions Nick is being kept in.

Iris, along with Nick's partner Beverley and two-year-old son George, travelled to London recently to hand a 1,000-name petition in at Number 10 Downing Street.

They also released balloons outside the Japanese embassy bearing an appeal to the country and details of Nick's website - www.justicefornickbaker.org.

The fundraising concert will take place at Cirencester's Sundial Theatre on December 13 (band night) and 14 (family night), starting 7.30pm.

Tickets, which are £5 for the former and £8 for the latter, are available from the Sundial.