I met this guy once,long time ago,didnt realise his story was still rolling on.
Why the 'Free Billy Burton petition' was created
In 1992 Billy Burton made the biggest mistake of his life. He had been travelling the World, ran short of money and made the terrible decision to carry drugs out of Manila.
Billy was carrying cannabis and was arrested on the plane on the runway in Manila
and was given a life sentence by a court in Manila. He was told that he could expect to serve eight years before being considered for parole. This figure has risen from eight to twenty, twenty to thirty, then thirty to forty years and still with no agreed release date in sight.
He fully accepts his wrong doing and has spent the past eighteen years trying to survive and certainly not complaining about his lot. He committed a crime and does not offer excuses for this but after 18 long years, we his supporters, feel he has paid the price. If he had committed a similar offence in the UK, he could have expected to have served five years.
In a recent letter from Billy published in the Wetherby News, he said,
“For my disrespect, lack of decency and failure to uphold moral standards when I committed a crime 18 years ago, I have only regrets. There are no excuses. I do not think however that only bad people do bad things; sometimes good people also do bad things”
The conditions in the jail have been described by an official prison visitor as "worse than any slum I have seen". In line with many fellow thalidomiders, Billy’s physical health is deteriorating. He was visited by the Director of the Thalidomide Trust in January this year who reported musculo-skeletal and sensory (hearing and vision) deterioration. The Trust's director seriously doubts whether the prison can respond to Mr Billy's needs as he continues to deteriorate.
