Mother to petition Tony Blair to free son

Mrs Baker, 54, of Oaksey, will present the petition bearing more than 1,000 names, for the attention of the Prime Minister Tony Blair, on September 12.

It will be Mrs Baker's latest bid to persuade the Government to intervene on behalf of her son, Nick, who was jailed for 14 years in June, after being caught carrying 40,000 ecstasy tablets out of Japan.

He had already spent 11 months in solitary confinement in Chiba Prison for refusing to plead guilty.

"People from all over the world have signed the petition on the freenickbaker website," said Mrs Baker.

"Some were from as far away as Romania. We had more than 800 signatures in just two weeks and the number is rising all the time."

As well as his long sentence, Nick Baker has been ordered to pay a £25,000 fine.

Mrs Baker said raising the money to pay the fine was a monumental task, but revealed that after appeals for ideas, she was approached by a musician involved with Amnesty International, who suggested putting on a concert in aid of the campaign.

"We need all the help we can get," she said.

"This is about making a stand for the human rights of all prisoners abroad, not just my son.

"People don't get fair trials in Japan and Nick isn't the only one to have suffered over there."

Mrs Baker said the response to the campaign had been great, but that she would like many more people to sign the website petition.

"The more people who support us, the more pressure we can put on the powers that be," she said.

Mrs Baker also recently asked Gazette readers to write to her son to offer messages of support and said around a dozen people had done so.

"I am sure it has been a surprise for him to know how much support he has," she said.

People wishing to sign the Nick Baker petition should log on to www.justicefornickbaker.org

Messages and letters of support should be sent to Nicholas Baker, Chiba Detention Centre, 192 Kaizuka-Cho, Wakabu-Ku, Chiba-Shi, Chiba-Ken, 2640023, Japan.

My Japanese torture

AS his mother continues to fight for his freedom here in Wiltshire, Nick Baker has given the Gazette his first interview from the notorious Japanese jail where he is serving a 14-year sentence for drug trafficking.

In this account, Mr Baker, 32, describes the filth and degradation of his prison cell and how he clings to a photograph of his two-and-half-year-old son George in a desperate bid to keep his sanity.

Mr Baker was sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment and a £25,000 fine after a Japanese court found him guilty of attempting to smuggle 40,000 ecstasy tablets out of the country 18 months ago.

Now incarcerated in the Chiba Detention Centre, outside Tokyo, he is confined to a tiny cell with four other men in appalling conditions.

"I am, as my mother says, totally tired and weary, both mentally and physically," he said. "Laying here on a hard floor in the kennel, I sometimes hear planes flying overhead and pray to be on one heading home."

But the normality of home is a long way from Mr Baker's current predicament. Some of Japan's most savage killers are held at Chiba, notorious for its rigid regime, and hundreds of deaths are said to occur inside its walls every year.

"My days start as they end, lonely and full of anger," he said.

"I open my eyes after around four hours' sleep. It is still dark outside and a there is stranger lying next to me.

"Horrible smells fill the air and I look up at the mould and filth on the ceiling and walls and I can almost understand why people are pushed to take their own lives or even kill others in this archaic and barbaric system.

"I turn to God for help, to get me through another never-ending day.

"I look at my son and partner Bev's photo in complete despair.

"It is impossible to put into words the total numbness, emptiness and desperation of not being with my son.

"I know a man isn't supposed to cry, but that's how I spend my days."

Mr Baker and his supporters, including his mother Iris Baker, 55, of Oaksey, near Malmesbury, maintain that he was imprisoned after being duped into carrying drugs by a fellow traveller.

Currently fighting to have him extradited to Britain to serve out the rest of his sentence, they believe that he was denied a fair trial and that if he stays in Japan he could die before his sentence is served.

"I wish I could be at home with my family, to be experiencing parenthood with Bev," said Nick.

"I think of my family and wonder what they might be doing...of George around at our next door neighbours' house, chasing their daughters around. Or maybe Bev will be bathing him or reading George a story and I wish to be home more than ever.

"I try to put myself there with them, but I can never touch them and hold them as I wish I could."

Mr Baker's partner and son live in Stroud, but are in constant contact with his mother, the determined leader of the campaign to have him brought back to Britain.

"Each day I am away from my family I find it harder to keep my grip on reality," said Mr Baker.

"Without their constant letters, I do not know what I would be like now."

His days are long and uneventful, leaving him unaware of the time or even the date.

"After lying awake for what seems like forever, we are allowed to get up and my day gets ever worse," he explained.

"The guards come around and clean our cells well, what they call cleaning the cells.

"We sleep on inch-thick mats which are our beds and which rest on the concrete floor.

"Then it's roll call, when we have to sit cross-legged and call our name out when shouted to any mistakes can lead to punishment."

His breakfast, which like all his meals is served in the cell, consists of dirty rice with a thin soup containing a few morsels of fish.

"You would not expect a dog to eat it," he said.

After this, he is given a small table on which to write and slumps in a corner cross-legged for the rest of the day.

"I imagine that to look at me would be like seeing a lonely old man," he said.

"When I get the chance, I try to release some of the pain in my spine which has gone un-treated. I also try to stretch my legs too, to stop the swelling in my knees.

"If we are lucky, we get up to one hour of exercise a week in a small area with about 50 others.

"This actually means standing alone, as there's no room to exercise and no other British people to talk to.

"But even this is better than solitary confinement, where I got to exercise alone in an area you would let a pet rabbit run around in."

The opportunity to wash is also infrequent. "At the moment, we are only allowed to wash three times a week. Lately they installed showers although only a small number, so if you don't get one, you only get the communal bath water which can be filthy from all the other people who have been in it," he said.

"Most people here have some kind of foot fungus, scalp disease or rashes and they are passed from person to person.

"Then they are either too stupid or too proud to get it treated, or fear they will be moved to be kept alone, so it becomes a never-ending circle."

If he is not given the chance to wash or exercise, Mr Baker spends most of the time slumped in a corner of his cell writing to his family.

"I also pray and read the Bible, although quietly so not to annoy the guards," he said.

"The level of communication is less than basic. You can only talk at certain times, but there is no one that I can really talk to anyway, which makes my days very lonely.

"And lack of contact means that I am slowly losing my grip on reality and feel my sanity is slipping down into a pit of hell.

"The guards also take offence at the slightest thing from how you are sitting, to how you are lying on the floor.

"I have been threatened and spat at they seem to think this is part and parcel of how to treat human brings and refer to me as the 'alien.'

"I lie here awake and totally alone every night, listening to the human orchestra around me.

"The lights are on 24 hours a day, seven days a week and during the day, Japanese radio is turned up high, making it difficult for me to concentrate through the babble of foreign voices.

"Psychologically it leaves my head swimming and seems to make my long days seem even longer than ever."

When asked about the circumstances of his arrest, Nick is hesitant to talk too much, mainly he says, because his letters are vetted by the prison guards.

"There aren't many people now that I would trust it has been an expensive lesson to learn," he said.

"The constant abuse I receive here has left my nerves shattered I can't stop myself shaking most of the time."

He is however, more outspoken when asked about action being taken on his and other British prisoners' behalf by the British Government.

"It is time Mr Blair did more about here, as he has in other countries," he said.

"Please, Mr Blair, stand by your own words that all should be treated equally and given a fair trial."

Nick ended his interview with a message to Gazette and Herald readers.

"I hope this opens your readers' eyes to the truth about what goes on in this corrupt country," he said.

"I would also like to send my thanks to the people who are giving my family support."

Anyone wishing to contact Mrs Baker or to find out more about Nick Baker's case can e-mail Iris Baker at freenickbaker@hotmail.com