It looks like Annice Smoel may be getting the justice she deserves.
BAR mat mum Annice Smoel’s dream family trip to Disneyland is in tatters after she was denied a US visa – because of her Thai criminal record.
Mrs Smoel had planned to take her daughters Zhian, 12, Daisy, 11, Zoe, 8, and Lilly, 6, to the theme park to make up for the distress they endured during her drama over a beer mat stolen in a Phuket bar prank.
But the trip is all but cancelled after the US embassy in Melbourne knocked back her application for a non-immigrant visa.
Mrs Smoel is ineligible because she is listed as a convicted criminal. She copped a conviction, a six-month suspended jail term and a $37 fine after she agreed to plead guilty to theft in exchange for her freedom.
Gallery: Bar mat mum Annice Smoel
The 36-year-old said her daughters would be devastated by the latest drama.
“They’ve been having nightmares and coming into mum’s bed at night since I got back. It would have been the perfect way to take their minds off all of what’s happened,” Mrs Smoel said.
The family was originally due to fly out to the US in May but Mrs Smoel was trapped in Thailand following the bar mat incident.
She was finally handed back her passport and allowed to leave Thailand after 18 days.
At a meeting with the US embassy in Melbourne yesterday, Mrs Smoel was told her conviction could mean she is barred from travelling to the US for up to seven years.
“That’s seven years away, my girls will be all grown up by then,” she said.
Source: The Daily Telegraph
Bravo USA!!
But the really disturbing thing about this read is that again she paints herself as a victim. Like not going to the US to visit Disneyland is scarring her children. It’s the USA’s fault if her kids grow up and become serial killers because they wouldn’t let poor Annice take her family to Disneyland.
For the love of god, has this woman ever accepted responsibility for her actions ever in her life? Seriously, it wouldn’t have been public knowledge that her visa application was rejected so in order for this story to have come to light she phoned up the press and made another melodramatic plea. Maybe she’s hoping media pressure will cause the US to cave or that perhaps the Australian government can step in and talk to the US embassy about making an exception in her case.
You know, because America really wants drunken tourists who run from the cops and verbally abuse police coming in their country. I wish they would quit calling her the Beer Mat Mom because that’s not what landed her in hot water. It was simply the thing that began her problems. They should call her “The Completely Irresponsible Ugly Tourist Mom.”
She paints this picture for readers of her nightmare-having children yet it was HER actions which caused the nightmares that can only be cured by traveling to the US. When she was sitting there talking to the Thai police officer who stopped her SHE made the decision that she was willing to risk putting her family through emotional trauma. She thought nothing of her family and instead only of herself and made a run from the police. When captured and taken to the police station she could have thought about her family again and pleaded for forgiveness or attempted to clear up the misunderstanding (i.e. pay a bribe) but yet again she showed zero parental or spousal responsibility and decided to verbally abuse the police officers for doing their job.
Well, this is the price you pay for one drunken night of irresponsibility and thinking of no one but yourself.
Well deserved! I only feel sorry for her poor kids,and how they will end up having this kind of “Mum”.
And what is your source that she ran from police and then verbally abused them? Please don’t say the owner of the bar who made these comments originally but wasn’t even in the country at the time. That guy has a lot of nerve publicly opening his mouth on a subject he has no first hand experience with, only hearsay from angry Thai staff. The cops publicly said she was not abusive. All the witnesses Ive heard about said she was emotionally distraught but not abusive, and that she was “captured” by bar staff, she wasn’t running from police.
There have been posts on several message boards of people who were either there or heard firsthand from Thais who witnessed it.
In all of her time describing the horrors of her plight she has not once refuted those claims. In fact, it’s interesting that no Australian journalist has even put the question to her as far as I’ve read.
And while corrupt, the Thai police usually don’t throw married mothers in prison over practical jokes like that. They would have surely asked for a bribe or made her pay a fine but the severity of her punishment is probably the best proof.
Covict Smoel received a conviction, a six-month jail term suspended for two years and a 1000 baht fine. Not a slap on the wrist, Anonymous. She can be referred to as convict Smoel from now on. Money could not buy her freedom.
This is a case of “som nam naa”. An Aussie Bar employee said they watched Smoel fold up the beer mat and put it in her bag. When challenged by a police officer, she ran away. She later abused senior police officers at Kathu police station. And she managed to get off with a slap on the wrist, not to mention at least 20,000 Australian dollars for selling the story of her “ordeal”. Getting barred from Disneyland is the very least she deserves. She has sullied the reputation of Aussies in Thailand.
A Thai bar employee said this? Funny, Thais lie to me every single day, stopped listening to their fairy tales years ago. And a bar employee?! When it comes to saving face there is no limit to the things they will say. They have video in the bar, why was that never brought forward? Smoel was adamant that it would clear her name and yet it never surfaced. All the “facts” people are listing as the reason she deserves this are hearsay from people that werent even there ie. the bar owner coming forward and publicly making statements about the polices interaction with her when he wasn’t even in the country. She totally refuted the claims she abused police, it was very clear in the news. Who saw her at the police station? All the witnesses I read about said she did not abuse the police, even the police don’t say she abused them. Bunch of face saving propaganda on the part of the Thai bar staff.
Michael,
Thank you for demonstrating yourself to be a racist bastard. It’s no wonder you believe she’s innocent. You’re probably of the same ilk.
Please go back to your own country and quit ruining the good name of whatever country it is that you come from over here.
Cheers,
Ruai
Its not racist to point out a glaring cultural trait, it is acceptable and encouraged to lie here. They lie to save face, they lie so as not to hurt your feelings, they lie to get more money out of you, they lie if they don’t know the answer to your question….. These particular bar staff have a history of going after foreign tourists and threatening to put them in jail over minor perceived or made up crimes. These EXACT bar staff.
Actually you are racist because it’s not a cultural trait anymore than farangs telling their wife “of course not” when their wife asks if her ass looks big in these jeans. Every culture has the white lie so saving face is common to everyone. The rest of your supposed examples show that you probably spend way too much time in tourist spots and have zero clue about what happens outside of Bangla Rd.
It’s unfortunate that you live your life around the bar scene so much that you only expose yourself to the people most desperate and likely to lie. But to call it a cultural trait says more about your understanding of Thailand than it does about the Thai people.
I don’t go to bars, I’m married to a non Thai and spend my time with her after work. Why do people like you always say the same insults? As for saving face being a universal trait for all cultures… that was the biggest lie I’ve ever heard. It is you that obviously hasn’t got a clue about Thailand and what living here is really like. Everyone knows that saving face and the lies associated with it are a very real and very large THAI problem, it is the reason progress here is so slow. Nobody can be held accountable for anything, nobody can be told they are wrong. Makes it hard to do things right. People like you “Thai apologists” will always defend Thailand no matter what they do and try to put blame on other falangs. If a falang is victimised in some way you guys come out of the woodwork putting the blame on the victim. Thais can do no wrong with you guys and falangs are always doing wrong. Ignoring facts and witnesses you will just condemn the falang like in this situation with Smoel. Doesn’t matter what the cops say, doesnt matter what the Governor says, doesn’t matter what the witnesses at the police station say, you heard from someone that heard from someone that she was rude so it must be true and she must deserve a harsh penalty. Ridiculous.