After Being Jailed In Malta For Selling Drugs, British Man Says: ‘I’d Give The Prison A 6.9 On TripAdvisor’
A British man who spent 19 months in Malta’s prison after he was caught selling drugs at a festival has spoken quite fondly about his time at the Corradino Correctional Facility.
Harry Rollinson, 28, who was released from jail in 2017, spoke of his experience in Young, Dumb and Locked Up in the Sun, a Channel 5 series about British people who get jailed overseas.
He said he was scared he was going to get pinned down and raped on his first night.
“There was often a riot and it all kicked off, people coming at you with marks on their head, blood. It was mad,” he said.
“The worst thing I saw was someone getting bleach, hot water and sugar in a glass threw in their face. Their face literally peeled off and he was blinded in one eye.”
However, although he was eligible to be transferred to a UK prison after two months, he turned the offer down because his Maltese cell was cosy and had a comfy bed, a flat-screen TV and rugs on the floor.
“I’d give it a 6.9 on TripAdvisor,” he quipped.
Rollinson said he also got to invite a girl he had met at a festival to a conjugal visit, a prison privilege that has since been banned.
He was originally sentenced for 30 months in jail but was released after 19 months on good behaviour. However, he admitted to Channel 5 that, in his prison job as a maintenance worker, he used to secretly drill holes into cupboards so his fellow inmates could hide their mobile phones in them.
Rollinson had travelled to Malta to attend a festival and tried to fund his trip by smuggling over two and a half ounces of MDMA, worth €10,000, and selling it to festival-goers.
He inserted the drugs into a condom and shoved it up bum and, although he managed to get past airport security, the package ended up entering his stomach.
Rollinson rushed to the airport toilets, pushed out the package and fished it out from his poo inside the toilet bowl. He mixed the drugs with brown sugar to dilute it and make more money out of it and sold them to party-goers outside the festival, pocketing nearly €12,000.
He used some of the money to buy two pills and some cocaine for himself but was caught by police as he bent to pick a bag of white powder from the floor.
He insisted that he had just picked up the packet, but police officers told him they had been watching him and knew he was on drugs. After they found wads of cash and leftover MDMA in his hotel room drawer, Rollinson admitted to smuggling and selling drugs and was sentenced to 30 months in jail.
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