{"id":119934,"date":"2025-09-07T02:53:26","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T02:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/119934\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T02:53:26","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T02:53:26","slug":"british-law-student-jailed-in-dubai-for-25-years-was-caught-with-cocaine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/119934\/","title":{"rendered":"British law student jailed in Dubai for 25 years ‘was caught with cocaine’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mia O’Brien, 23, has been sentenced to 25 years behind bars following a one-day hearing after she was caught with 50 grams of the Class drug last October, with an estimated street value of around \u00a32,5000.Liam Buckler, Senior News Reporter and Ryan Thom<\/a><\/p>\n

15:04, 06 Sep 2025Updated 15:10, 06 Sep 2025<\/p>\n

\"MiaMia O’Brien and her mum Danielle McKenna(Image: Gofundme)<\/p>\n

A British student who was jailed for life in Dubai was allegedly caught with cocaine,<\/a> her mum has claimed.<\/p>\n

Mia O’Brien, 23, has been sentenced to 25 years behind bars following a one-day hearing after she was caught with 50 grams of the Class A drug <\/a>last October, with an estimated street value of around \u00a32,5000.<\/p>\n

The Liverpool University law student pleaded not guilty but was convicted on July 25 and fined \u00a3100,000 by the court. She was sent to Dubai Central Prison, where she is living with six other inmates, the Mirror reports.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mia’s mum Danielle said: “Mia feels she has destroyed her life as she wanted to be a lawyer or solicitor.”<\/p>\n

“I speak to her but she can’t say too much on the phone. She’s just made a stupid mistake after going over to see a friend and her boyfriend in Dubai.”<\/p>\n

\"MiaMia got mixed up with the wrong crowd, her mum says <\/p>\n

According to her mum, Mia pleaded not guilty to intent to supply the cocaine.<\/a> However, a judge handed her a life sentence after a one-day hearing.<\/p>\n

Daniell, 46, told the Daily Mail: <\/a>“The trial was all in Arabic and Mia was told of the sentence later by her lawyer.<\/p>\n

“She is absolutely devastated by what has happened. Mia is being really strong but I know she is going through a living hell.”<\/p>\n

The law student has not yet paid the court’s fine, but is due to have an appeal in the next couple of weeks. Mia hopes she get sentenced back to the UK after Ramadan.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, she is said to be “absolutely devastated” following the sentencing and is “going through a living hell”, according to her mum.<\/a><\/p>\n

Danielle revealed that the prison conditions are “horrendous” and that Mia has to “bang on a big door” if she needs anything.<\/a><\/p>\n

The university student wept on the phone and begged for forgiveness from her mum, who claimed she is “not a drug taker.”<\/p>\n

\"MiaMia pleaded not guilty to intent to supply the drugs\"\"Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community!<\/p>\n

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Daniella believes her daughter is “innocent” and has been the victim of a “miscarriage of justice.”<\/p>\n

She previously set up a GoFundMe page <\/a>to help cover her daughter’s legal fees, writing: “Mia has been given a life sentence in Dubai and she is now in central prison. As you can all probably imagine, as her mother I am absolutely devastated. I haven’t seen my daughter since last October.<\/p>\n

“Mia is only 23 years old and has never done a bad thing in her life. This is a young girl, who went to university to do law, and unfortunately got mixed up in the wrong so-called friends and made a very stupid mistake and is now paying the price.<\/p>\n

\"SheShe is now in central prison on a life term<\/p>\n

“So all I ask is if you can donate anything you can spare, even if it’s a \u00a31, it could help up massively and I would be forever grateful. Thank you so much.”<\/p>\n

The GoFundMe was later taken down after allegedly “breaching community rules”.<\/p>\n

A GoFundMe spokesperson told The Sun: “It was removed because it violates Term 9 of the Prohibited Conduct section in our Terms of Service. Term 9 prohibits raising funds on GoFundMe for the legal defence of certain alleged crimes.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mia O’Brien, 23, has been sentenced to 25 years behind bars following a one-day hearing after she was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[30119,1343,57242,59,57,58,11263,632,50,288,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-119934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-cocaine","9":"tag-courts","10":"tag-drugs-crime","11":"tag-gb","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-greatbritain","14":"tag-justice","15":"tag-middle-east","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-police","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}