When will they learn?

What can I say, some people are stupid like you won't believe.

Adding to an ever growing list of Australians caught behaving stupidly overseas, Annice Smoel of Montrose, Melbourne, now finds herself facing 2 to 5 years jail if found guilty of stealing a bar mat from the Aussie Bar in Phuket, Thailand. As usual her lawyer pulls the compassion string citing sick-kid-back-home-so-let-mom-Annice-go-home but the Thai authorities are not buying.

With regards to Smoel's innocence, so far there's been a lot of she says, her lawyer says, her friends says, but I thought what the Aussie Bar's owner Steve Wood says make some sense, " . . .  Smoel had "rubbed the wrong people the wrong way". . . . . apparently Smoel had fled when approached by police and was later spotted at a beach and walked to Patong police station where she abused the police chief." 

Sort of bring to mind this other case, doesn't it? You just don't invoke in-the-name-of-Rudd-I-command-thee while on foreign soil. Geddit?

Good bloody grief.

UPDATE 21.05.09: Annice Smoel is winging her way back to her trailer after the Governor of Phuket, reportedly under pressure from powers higher up the pecking order, intervened. Maybe its just me but I get this nudging feeling we will soon be seeing Smoel's (paid?) appearance in/on Oz tabloid media. *yawn*