Liverpool student with Dubai life sentence over ‘single line of cocaine’: Everything we know

Liverpool student, Mia O’Brien, is facing life imprisonment in Dubai Central Prison until 2050 over a “single line of cocaine”.

The 24-year-old from Huyton, Merseyside, was reportedly found with 50 grams of Class A substances in the Middle East in October.

Her mother, Danielle McKenna has since claimed this is a “miscarriage of justice” and has insisted her daughter is innocent, The Sun reports. 

Mia was arrested after being found to 50g of cocaine

via GoFundMe

The former University of Liverpool student was served a 25 year sentence in Dubai this week after being caught with 50 grams of cocaine.

Danielle McKenna blamed “the wrong so-called friends” for the “stupid mistake” her daughter made. She believes she is a “victim of a miscarriage of justice” that “has destroyed her life as she wanted to be a lawyer or solicitor”.

Mia was travelling to Dubai to visit her friend and her boyfriend and had “paid for her own flight”. Danielle shared that the two others that were with Mia have been charged with drug dealing and that she feels that the friend’s boyfriend “has a lot to answer for”.

Her mum claims she was “so shocked and heartbroken” upon the discovery of her daughter’s imprisonment.

She said: “She was crying on the phone and saying: “Oh mum – please forgive me.”

Danielle added: “I don’t know what has happened but she is old enough to make her own mind up.

“I definitely don’t think she was going to sell the drugs or bring them back.

“It’s a lot of drugs but there are others involved and she has just been caught up in it”

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It’s speculated the Liverpool student fell out with the friend she was arrested with

via Facebook

Mia was arrested alongside her friend Emma from home, and her friend’s boyfriend.

However, only Mia tested positive for drug use and was taken into custody. Her friend, Emma, tested negative and was released. She is now back in the UK.

A fellow inmate who shared a cell with Mia has corroborated her mother’s statements, developing to the Mirror: “Her problem was that they had all been arrested and Mia had it in her system. Her friend didn’t so she was released and is back in the UK. Mia thinks she must have stitched her up to get home,” the woman said.

The woman, a mother and fellow Briton who became Mia’s cellmate after fleeing a car accident scene but later being released, revealed the student opened up to her during their shared confinement.

She also speculated that Mia had “fallen out” with her friend and said that the law student had claimed that it was the boyfriend who possessed the cocaine.

Emma’s boyfriend was also sentenced to 25 years.

Mia claims to only have done ‘a line of cocaine’

via GoFundMe

Confessing to using cocaine at a party according to the woman, Mia rejected any possibility of her being a drug dealer.

The woman shared with the Sun that the student, “knew she was in big trouble but didn’t seem to think she would be treated as a dealer”.

“If what she’s saying is true and all she has done is a line of cocaine, 25 years is a horrifically long sentence,” she added.

Mia’s being held in a ‘vile’ prison and is ‘going through a living hell’

The woman detailed the conditions at Al Barsha detention centre, where Mia had been held prior to her transfer to Al Awir prison as having “vile” cells, with repulsive toilet facilities and a lack of natural lighting.

Her mum believes she is “going through a living hell” as the “prison conditions are horrendous”.

Danielle added: “She is absolutely devastated by what has happened. Mia is being really strong but I know she is going through a living hell”.

A GoFundMe set up for Mia was removed by the platform

via GoFundMe

The student’s family made an urgent plea for help in a GoFundMe page that was set up to assist them with legal and travel fees they are likely to face following her sentencing.

In the now deleted fundraiser, her mum called upon friends and relatives to “donate anything you can spare”.

Her mother later uploaded a follow-up statement to the page, thanking those who had sent money to the family to aid them in their attempt to release their daughter from the Dubai prison.

The fundraiser, which had a target of £1,600, had collected just under £700 before it then disappeared.

Danielle had to launch a fresh fundraiser earlier this month on Christian fundraising site GiveSendGo, after GoFundMe suddenly pulled her earlier appeal.

The 24-year-old wanted to be a lawyer

via GoFundMe

In statements provided to The Daily Mail, her mother shared that Mia feels “she has destroyed her life as she wanted to be a lawyer or solicitor”.

Danielle labelled the ordeal as a “stupid mistake”.

Mia O’Brien has not paid the court’s 500,000 dirham fine but is due to have an appeal in the following weeks.