A former drug smuggler has lifted the lid on his life of crime, including how he escaped from a notorious Thai prison just two weeks before his execution date.

London-born David McMillan, 65, is the only Westerner known to have broken out of Bangkok’s notorious Klong Prem Central Prison.

David, who was raised in Australia, is a former drug smuggler who’s spent 18 years of his life behind bars – including a 10-year stretch in Australia’s Pentridge Prison for conspiracy to import heroin and cannabis.

While he was serving that sentence his first wife died in a 1981 prison fire.

Six months after his release, in 1993, David was arrested in Bangkok Airport. He was caught with two passports in different names and $45,000-$50,000 of cash that he says was “pocketed” by the Thai police.

But David’s problems multiplied when a 40-gram package of heroin was found dumped in the airport – and under Thai law anyone caught with such a large quantity could be sentenced to death.

David told MyLondon it wasn’t his. He argues that if he’d been smuggling heroin he would have been carrying a lot more.

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He said he’d only gone to Thailand pick up some money he’d earned before his Australian arrest, but he wasn’t allowed to travel as he was still on parole, he was using a fake ID

He was interrogated in an underground cell for days, he says. Some of his fellow-prisoners coundn’t take it:“I had a cellmate who tried to kill himself. He took over 100 rohypnol. Would you believe it, it still didn’t kill him, but he couldn’t walk for three days.”

After the questioning he was taken to court which he says “was a spectacle in itself".

He says it was chaotic, with “deafening noise, blocked toilets, and people running around in chains”.

And when he was transferred to the massive 22,000 inmate Klong Prem prison, things went from bad to worse.

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Prison life was brutal, and because Bangkok is so low-lying, the prison would often flood “and you’d often find yourself living in a lake”.

Overcrowding was routine, food was grim, and often infested with creepy-crawlies, and torture was commonplace.

David says a group of “local street kids” who tried to escape were caught and “horribly beaten to death,”

“Internal bleeding caught up with them within a few weeks and they died.

“The worst part of knowing someone’s being tortured isn’t the seeing, it’s the hearing it.

“You hear the thwack of the heavy wooden sticks, then the screams turn into high-pitched wails.

“And when that goes quiet you hear nothing – that’s unconsciousness – but you still hear the thump, like a carcass in a meat factory being hit with a stick.”

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David was in Klong Prem for two years awaiting trial, but when his lawyer visited and told him he was set to be executed within two weeks, he knew he had to act fast.

He says he planned his escape from the moment he set foot in there.

Through bribery and smuggling David obtained rope, hacksaw blades and a bamboo ladder

His daring midnight escape took him through part of the prison where inmates were taken to die.

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Aids, which was spread through sharing syringes, was rife in the jail, and around 200 inmates died each day, he claims.

He vividly remembers the stench as "decaying, rotting flesh of those about to die".

But even after breaking out of prison, David knew he wasn’t truly free until he was out of the country.

Using cash and fake travel documents stashed for him by another former inmate he spent his last $500 on a flight to Singapore.

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But within a couple of years David was in trouble again.

This time he says he was being caned and electrocuted by police in Pakistan over his suspected involvement in the smuggling of 14 kilos of opium.

“I was face down on this table with a clip on each toe with a rubber sheet over me so the guard could sit on me," he said.

“There really is nothing like being electrocuted, it’s so much worse than being beaten.”

Fortunately he was saved by a liaison from the British Embassy who’d heard in passing there was an “English foreigner” locked away, and he managed to put a stop to the torture.

When David eventually returned to England, he steered clear of trouble but spent two years in Wandsworth Prison, between 2014-2016, after the Thai authorities tried to have him extradited.

But David insists Thailand “didn’t actually want him”, and when he pointed out that their warrants were over 20 years old they “accepted” it.

Now, David says he’s gone straight and fits CCTV cameras for a living.

He looks back on his former life and says he regrets it, as “life is very short".

If you’d like to hear more about David’s life, you can get a copy of his book ‘Unforgiving Destiny’ here.

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