Ian Mackellar advice: "Don't procrastinate, contact Radha Stirling".

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The Times: Ian Mackellar, who was arrested after a row over a noisy party, flew home last week. He tells of his shock at his ordeal.

The first thing Ian Mackellar did when he got home on Tuesday was order fish and chips for his family.

It was a moment he was not sure he would experience again. Six weeks ago, Mackellar, 75, was facing jail in Dubai after a dispute about a noisy New Year’s Eve party. He was running out of medicine for his heart condition, and his wife, Carol, feared he would not survive a prison sentence.

Mackellar was finally allowed to fly home to Aberdeenshire last week after receiving support from lawyers at the legal organisation Detained in Dubai.

Radha Stirling, the human rights lawyer who founded Detained in Dubai, said she was pleased the Dubai government had intervened in Mackellar’s case but that his dealings with the Emirati authorities should be seen as a “warning” to Britons.

The Mackellars had flown to the United Arab Emirates in November to help their 43-year-old daughter move into her new home. They returned again in December. Late on New Year’s Eve, a neighbour’s party music was keeping their 18-month-old granddaughter awake. Mackellar, holding the screaming girl in his arms, approached the participants in their front garden to ask if they could move indoors.

He received an aggressive response, with several partygoers pushing him and knocking the child’s bottle out of his hand. Mackellar said the hostess, a Lebanese woman, threw a drink over him and his granddaughter, leaving them “soaked”.

Stirling said Mackellar’s case should serve as a warning to Britons travelling to or living in the UAE that the police “automatically prosecute on the basis of a verbal complaint made against British citizens, usually for vindictive or extortion reasons”.

There have been several high-profile instances in recent years of Britons being held in Dubai. Jamie Harron, from Stirling, Perthshire, was arrested in 2017 for “public indecency” after touching a man on the hip to avoid spilling a drink in a crowded bar. His case was expedited after Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the emirate’s ruler, ordered him to be freed.

Stirling said of Mackellar’s case: “I am thankful that the Dubai government intervened in what was clearly a trivial matter that never should have escalated to the point where Ian risked over a year in prison. Most [foreign nationals] who are accused of a crime face months waiting for a court date, unable to return home or resume work, as well as suffering costly legal and hotel bills. If they are found guilty, which is usually the case, regardless of evidence, they will then face many months more of entanglement in the legal appeals process.”

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