'A foolish fling and vicious bedroom catfight cost me everything': Dubai yacht broker locked up for illegal sex reveals the traumatic fallout from the scandal
How
Danielle Spencer must have enjoyed her first glimpse of her date’s luxury apartment. There was the vast expanse of
Italian marble, the fashionable minimalist decor and the floor-to-ceiling windows beyond which
Dubai’s extraordinary cityscape pulsed with money and power.
So captivated was she by wealthy
banker Toby Carroll and his fabulous Gulf lifestyle, there was one lifestyle accessory she crucially failed to notice: his furious on-off
girlfriend.Danielle was
naked and
in bed with Mr Carroll when Priscila Ferreira burst in. The catfight that ensued across the luxury Egyptian cotton sheets involved hair-pulling and the hurling of designer shoes. But what began as a lads-mag fantasy tussle degenerated when Priscila grabbed a kitchen knife obliging Danielle to barricade herself in a
bathroom.It was an unedifying scene and, had the drama taken place in Europe or America, it would have remained just that. But this was the United Arab Emirates and – in her eagerness to enjoy Mr
Carroll’s hospitality – Danielle had overlooked another significant detail: here
sex outside of marriage is
forbidden.The Emiratis may turn a blind eye to the ex-patriot community’s sexual mores if they stay private but they refuse to have them freely displayed. So when Brazilian model Priscila, 25, complained to Dubai police about her disloyal lover and his willing accomplice, a 31-year-old former lapdancer, there was only ever going to be one outcome – a custody suite for three.
Now, for the first time, Danielle has spoken in detail about that night and the month she spent incarcerated as a result in the notoriously tough Bur Dubai police station.
Her story tells us much about the type of buccaneering woman who gambles whatever assets she has – be they brains or looks – to make money and perhaps even an advantageous marriage in the Gulf. It serves also as a reminder that the higher the stakes, the greater the potential loss.
Danielle says: ‘I thought I was going to die in that prison cell, that once I was in I’d never
get out. The worst thing was the not knowing what was happening, the sense I was being
forgotten. After three weeks I had an interview with the chief prosecutor who led me to believe my release was imminent. Then I was informed I could be held for a further 30 days. It was
devastating.‘On the night in question I was breathalysed and I was negative. As we had not actually had sex, I thought that they would just release Toby and me. But at one point a policeman turned
to me and said, “You are going to jail.” I broke down. I remember weeping, “But I’ve done nothing wrong.” It was the moment I realised my life in Dubai would be ruined.’
That life in Dubai, a place where self reinvention – if not compulsory – is certainly commonplace, is not one she would wish to lose. And it was perhaps her determination to cleave to it rather to return to her modest roots in Hull that compelled her to take the risks she did that night.
For there’s no varnishing the vulgar truth that Danielle was willing to go home with Toby Carroll on their second date. She justifies it by revealing that he had told her he had ended his romance with Priscila and that he was free to be with her. She says he had already nicknamed her Kitty Cat and told her she had ‘hijacked my mind’ – but in reality her decision was not just impetuous but also illegal.
The pair had met and exchanged phone numbers at a party shortly before Christmas. Soon afterwards Carroll, a New Zealander, took Danielle to the Yacht Club. It’s a Dubai landmark, one of the city’s oldest and poshest hangouts. (The only sea breeze you’ll catch there is the cocktail.) After a further date at the same venue Danielle chose to, in Dubai parlance, seal the deal.
She recalls: ‘The evening had been wonderful, we’d been out to dinner and talked about our lives in Dubai. We had a lot in common. He was smoking-hot, charming, intelligent, had a good job and a top-of-the-range Porsche. He was quite a catch.’And that was the heart of the matter. Carroll was a catch, a passport to another world for a girl who left school at 16 to sell double glazing.
He invited Danielle back to his apartment for coffee and within a few short minutes they were in a passionate clinch on the sofa. They made their way into his bedroom where, naked and engrossed by the matters in hand, they failed to notice Priscila come in.
Danielle says: ‘I saw this white floaty garment and heard a loud Latino voice. I thought the TV had come on. Suddenly I felt someone land on my back and grab my hair. Toby yelled, “Stop it Priscila. What are you doing?” ’
So did Danielle fight back? Try to escape? No. ‘I didn’t move, because I had just paid £250 for hair extensions and I didn’t want them falling out two days before Christmas.’ (Well, a girl needs to look her best when she’s reeling in a catch).
But Priscila, unwilling to relinquish the man who until a few hours earlier had been her own entree to Dubai’s money and status-obsessed society, turned nasty. ‘She bit me hard on my arm,’ Danielle says. ‘Toby was trying to pull her off me and she went to take her shoe off so she could hit us with it. I wriggled free and dashed into the bathroom and locked the door.’
As Danielle cowered in the en suite, she heard Priscila swearing and trashing the flat. Finally she heard her utter the chilling words: ‘I’m getting a knife and I’m going to kill her.’
Carroll called the police. He and Danielle told them they did not want to press charges but needed help removing Priscila from the flat. She retaliated by telling officers she had caught the couple having sex and counter-accusing them of assault. She added that she and Carroll were engaged. All three were bundled into a police van and taken to the city’s Jebel Ali police station.
Danielle says: ‘As I sat in the apartment among all the broken glass and debris which Priscila had created, I never for a minute dreamt it would be me who would end up behind bars. I felt that I was the innocent party, the victim. The police said we would have to go with them to the station so we could sign release papers, meaning the case would be dropped. I thought it was just a formality, that I would be going to work the next day.
‘But as I realised Priscila would say anything to save her own skin I went cold inside and then I started shaking and crying. We were taken for a medical examination by a British doctor. He didn’t say anything but the expression on his face was enough. He looked at me as if to say, “It’s two in the morning. What are you doing here in this state, a respectable girl like you?”
‘They cuffed Priscila and me together and put us in the van to go to Bur Dubai prison. I thought, “This is it, I’m in really big trouble.” Toby was sitting in the front of the van and Priscila and I were locked together in the back. There was absolute silence, no one spoke.
‘We pulled up outside this grim white building, with an armed guard at the barrier. I knew there weren’t going to be any release papers.
‘Priscila and I were led down a corridor with five large cells off it. There must have been about 70 women in the cells and it was very noisy with people shouting and crying. We were given a narrow bunk and told to share.’Danielle is the kind of woman who makes the best of her circumstances. So, shackled to a woman who just hours earlier had threatened to stab her, she decided they should team up.
‘I put my hand on Priscila’s shoulder and said, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t even know you existed.” I realised we were in this together and that we would have to get along to survive.
‘A lot of the time we would sit on our bunk hugging our knees under our chins, whispering in low voices about how we got there and how we were going to get out. Eventually she realised that we would all have to tell the truth if we were ever going to be released. Some of the women were in for assault and one was in for murder. I felt very scared. One night a fight broke out with women punching each other and pulling hair.
‘Against them, Priscila seemed to be the only one I could trust. At least I knew her background and what she’d done to get in here.’ Danielle does not see the delicious irony of that statement – but perhaps that’s unsurprising given the rigours of her daily life in jail.
‘It was a dingy basement with Artex ceilings and walls and no daylight. I couldn’t exercise because of the overcrowding. You could have a shower whenever you liked, but there were always massive queues and sometimes you waited all day to get washed. I wore the same clothes that I came in with for over a month. At night Priscila and I hugged each other for comfort and talked about Toby. I am surprised I kept it together for 32 days.’
Their release from prison came last Saturday when they were bailed pending further enquiries. ‘Priscila and I jumped for joy and started screaming while all the other inmates were clapping and cheering for us. I went round kissing every woman in there goodbye and wished them well. It was very emotional,’ says Danielle.
‘I never want to go back inside. I can’t face it. Yet I know there is a chance when my case comes up that I might have to. I am just hoping the allegations against me will be dropped when they realise I am telling the truth.’
In the last week, however, Danielle’s relief at being freed has turned to despair as the implications of her arrest for a sex offence in an Islamic country have became apparent. For six years she has enjoyed a succession of lucrative property jobs in the Emirates, most recently selling yachts and private jets to billionaires in Dubai. She admits: ‘Even though I feel I’ve done nothing wrong, I’ve lost my job and my reputation here is ruined. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to work in Dubai again.’
For her this is a catastrophic loss. It is hard to overestimate how much – and not just in fiscal terms – Danielle’s £100,000-a-year pay packet meant to her.
She was raised in Hull, an unlovely place where what little the German bombers left intact has been damaged by industrial decline and social deprivation. As a teenager she sought to better herself by joining the Territorial Army and, with a gift for sales, brought home the then impressive sum of £200 a week flogging double glazing.
But then, in the time-honoured tradition of many a pretty girl from an impoverished background, she embarked on a new life. Pictures plucked at random from her photograph album show her swimming on the Barrier Reef in Australia, piranha fishing in Brazil and relaxing in New Zealand during a world trip she funded working first as a croupier and then by lapdancing in gentlemen’s clubs.
For Danielle both jobs were preferable to living in a city whose unemployment rates are among the highest in the country and whose municipal twinning with Freetown in Sierra Leone invites jocular comparisons with war-torn West Africa.
She recalls her first lapdancing audition, for the Spearmint Rhino club in Birmingham, when she was 20. ‘I drank two bottles of wine beforehand to settle my nerves. It was quite an ordeal having to take off my clothes on stage, but I was told I was a natural and one of the best dancers they’d ever seen. Because I’d spent so long in the Territorial Army, I was used to assault courses and going up a pole held no fears for me.’
Danielle swiftly acquired a portfolio of clients – some celebrities and others well-heeled lawyers and bankers. Soon she moved to Stringfellows in London and from there she transferred to its sister club in Paris where she earned up to £1,700 a night. She says Brazilian football legend Ronaldinho and French player Robert Pires, who plays for Aston Villa in the Premier League, were among her appreciative audience.
Danielle lapdanced her way across the USA and had transferred to Spearmint Rhino in Melbourne, Australia, when she snatched the chance to relocate to Abu Dhabi and found work in the property business.
But the real estate crash last year plunged her into unemployment and debt and she returned to lapdancing in Australia for four months.
‘Once I had earned enough money to settle my debts I returned to Dubai and landed my dream job selling yachts. Everything seemed to be working out, especially when I met Toby and realised he was such a catch,’ she recalls.
No wonder then that she was willing to sleep with him so soon and in explicit contradiction of Dubai’s laws. As she headed into her fourth decade, Danielle must have been wondering what course her life would take next.
A future in Dubai must have seemed like such a good bet, a gamble worth taking. But unwary
Westerners would do well to remember that it is a metropolis sprung from a desert. And like all deserts its golden promise can be nothing more than a mirage.
