Jump to content

Don't sign anything at the police station - trust your lawyer, says lawyer


webfact

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 111
  • Created
  • Last Reply
10 hours ago, parallaxtech said:

It's really a serious question, though, who ya gonna call, Ghostbusters?  I am in Samui.  If you are nicked, do you have a trusted name on speed dial? 

i used to carry the number of my landlord who was a lawyer

 

i figured he would help out if i were nicked as he would suddenly be out rent

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, phantomfiddler said:

What do you do, late on a friday night, when a police sargeant says "Sign this document or you go to jail for 3 days" !!! I had no idea what was stated in the document, all in thai, no access to a lawyer due to the timing of the incident. Actually there was no incident, I was just sitting outside a bar drinking a beer when they turned up and said "get into the truck". They then said "give us 50,000 Bht or go to jail for 3 days until court on monday". I am a highly educated and qualified scholar, who has never committed any crime, and never ever had any charges laid against me, but 3 days in  a Thai jail was not on my bucket list. I knocked them down to 40,000 Bht and was released. That is the saddest thing in this country, the Thai police can do whatever they want with complete impunity ?

I was walking along the street in BKK mid day with my son. It was a Saturday.  A pick up full of police bovines pulls over blocks my path and a half dozen of them surround me, stick a piece of paper in my face,, hand cuff me toss me in the pick up and take me to the poluce station. Leaving my son 14 on the street. Long story short I spent 3 days in the police cells without food or water sleeping on a concrete floor then taken to court handcuffed to a man who killed his friend over a card game debt of 500 Baht. No lawyer no translator but I speak Thai so I knew what was going on. My former lawyer had sued me becsuse i sued him. He intentionally sent the court papers to the wrong address so i did not appear in court and a summons was issued for my arrest. He clearly knew where I was and paid the police 40,000 Baht to arrest me. Bottom Line trust your Thai lawyer? My passport was taken by the court I had to sign on every 30 days and 18 months later it was returned and my bank account minus almost a million Baht. And I was totally innocent. In the real world I was never even suspected of any crime same in Thailand all I did was sue an utterly corrupt lawyer for defrauding me of a considerable sum of money. This is Thailand ... Beware folks 99% of Thai lawyers have cloven feet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

when there is even the slightest whiff of trouble with thai police. run. 

 

i actually had a thai girl tell me i was an idiot for running out of a bar after being in a skirmish. i was on my way out and security ran right past me. standard move in the usa.

 

idk if thais are just totally not street smart or if she was right? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4. Get a lawyer to help out.

5. Don't believe people who say they are acting in your interests. Believe your lawyer.

with all the stories of crooked lawyers in Thailand ?! you better be very careful with trusting Thai lawyers !!!

Most lawyers have no ethics in Thailand they contact the other party and make a deal !!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 hours ago, Media1 said:

Especially these police lol. Concrete advice from a wide man. To add don't even read or translate without your lawyer. And forget your GF

Which leads to an interesting question. If you signed a document that you can't read and just signed because you were under duress at the police station (ordered to), would that document be admissible in court? In Pattaya, they have foreign interpreters on hand, but unfortunately, they finish duty at about 10 pm... and I doubt any of them can read Thai. There are always tourist police on hand too.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, off road pat said:

4. Get a lawyer to help out.

5. Don't believe people who say they are acting in your interests. Believe your lawyer.

with all the stories of crooked lawyers in Thailand ?! you better be very careful with trusting Thai lawyers !!!

Most lawyers have no ethics in Thailand they contact the other party and make a deal !!!

Unless you already have a good lawyer on hand there's nothing much you can do. Most people don't know good lawyers at the time they need one, because it's not the first thing on people's minds when they come to retire in Thailand. The lawyer that royally screwed me was recommended by the team leader of the tourist police... recommendations are about as useless as most lawyers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, stud858 said:

You little rippa. Can you share more details on this very juicy story? 

I hired them to file for my divorce. Both had been so clueless hat they filed for divorce in the Civil instead of the Family Court. I lost a lot of time and money. But let me tell you, if you want to go after Thai  lawyers you need the help of reliable 

Thai people you can trust because you are on your own. It took about 2 years and it wasn't for free. So there are some juicy details. I hope you are now satisfied.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 hours ago, hanuman2543 said:

I have extensiv first hand knowledge withThai lawyers.  I filed complaints with the Lawyer's Council of Thailand about two of them. One got his licence suspended for a year and one had to pay me compensation and I got it. So I call him a Thai apologist until he elaborates.

Maybe I should have done that, but I was facing criminal prosecution due to the gross negligence of a lawyer I hired and had too much other stuff to focus on at the time. It cost me about 200k. 100k plus for the first lawyer, and another 100k to get me out of the sh*t the first lawyer put me in. It was all resolved in the end, but it was over a year of aggravation beyond what most people on here would believe. Given the whole story, people on here would think I'm writing fiction. A lot of people on this forum don't deserve the truth and the effort it takes to report it. They call bs on anything beyond the scope of their own limited experiences.

 

I did actually consider making an official complaint to the Lawyer's Council but was worried about the possibility of retribution outside the confines of the justice system.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, stud858 said:

From a friends experience it seems judges think they can choose what to do rather than judge the written law. But that makes sense to me now. 

That's the benefits of not having juries. Judges develop a God-complex. Of course, even if they did have juries, they wouldn't be of much help to outsiders (non-Thai).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, tropo said:

Maybe I should have done that, but I was facing criminal prosecution due to the gross negligence of a lawyer I hired and had too much other stuff to focus on at the time. It cost me about 200k. 100k plus for the first lawyer, and another 100k to get me out of the sh*t the first lawyer put me in. It was all resolved in the end, but it was over a year of aggravation beyond what most people on here would believe. Given the whole story, people on here would think I'm writing fiction. A lot of people on this forum don't deserve the truth and the effort it takes to report it. They call bs on anything beyond the scope of their own limited experiences.

 

I did actually consider making an official complaint to the Lawyer's Council but was worried about the possibility of retribution outside the confines of the justice system.

You are right. Many people commenting here have no clue what is really happening here in the courts but they are really quick in passing a judgement. I could write a book about it too. The second time I filed for divorce even the judge didn't knew that the civil court was the wrong court until my ex wifes lawyer showed him a lawbook. That was on the 4th court date. You should have seen the faces of the judge and my lawyer. Loss of face all around. You can't make that shit up. That is really TiT.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some horrifying stories on here. Sounds like a catch 22, if you can't trust the police and the documents you're told to sign, and you also can't trust the lawyers, what actually is the most advisable way to proceed if arrested? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, lamyai3 said:

Some horrifying stories on here. Sounds like a catch 22, if you can't trust the police and the documents you're told to sign, and you also can't trust the lawyers, what actually is the most advisable way to proceed if arrested? 

You have to find a lawyer you can trust. They are out there, but you need to have them on tap BEFORE you need them so you can call on them when they are required. This is a bit of a quandary as no one tends to seek lawyers until they are needed, which can often be too late. In my case I had been living in peace here for 10 years until I needed one... and then, as most do, found a bad one, which made my particular situation 10x worse.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/9/2018 at 8:48 PM, tryasimight said:

What if what you sign is admission of guilt of a murder?  I'll take the lawyer option or the weekend inside thanks. 

I will not sign anything I cannot understand. 

I reckon it would be hard tl

confess to a murder Unless your already a suspect. 

 

If it was a small

case such as drink driving. Small

 bit of drugs and your offered bail from police station or go to court on a Monday. Then it’s a hard choice 

 

now days they  normally provide a translator who also has to sign the statement

 

from my experience they don’t ask you much and from what I can read in thai most of it matches

 

if there is a problem with the wording of the statement a lawyer should allow you to alter it due to some words not translating exactly from your language to Thai

 

once you have made bail you can always go back and change your statement with your lawyer 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.





×
×
  • Create New...