When David Scott fell in love with a beautiful Filipino woman, he embraced the opportunity to escape his humdrum existence as a machine operator in Swindon and begin a new life in an exotic land.

But within weeks of leaving his friends and family to join his girlfriend in her native country, his dream of happiness has vanished - to be replaced by a nightmare he could never have anticipated.

After fathering a child with Cynthia Delfino, whose separation from her estranged husband was not complete, the 35-year-old became an unwitting victim of the Philippines' harsh legal system.

He and 29-year-old Cynthia were charged with adultery and thrown into a rat-infested prison for four days.

They have now skipped bail and have gone into hiding as the country's police search for them. If they are caught, David faces seven years in jail and having his daughter taken away from him permanently.

David's ordeal began when Cynthia became pregnant with his child before she had officially separated. Adultery is illegal in the Philippines, where it can incur a seven-year jail sentence. Now, just weeks after the birth of baby Janina, Cynthia's estranged husband - who is considered the child's legal father in the Philippines - is determined to see the pair imprisoned if they do not pay him £7,000 compensation.

Now only cash, which David and Cynthia do not have, or diplomatic pressure, can save them from jail. However, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office say they cannot interfere with Philippine law.

Philippines lawyer and women's and children's rights activist Katrina Legarda warned: I have to tell you the worst first. David Scott is in great danger if he stays here. The fact that he has a baby proves the adultery. The baby is not legally his. A child born in a marriage is considered legitimate to the marriage only. Legally the baby belongs to her Filipino husband. Frankly put, he does not have a child. He should go home.

Legarda continued: I know this sounds unfair but this is the law and whenever we try to change it there is an outcry from the religious groups.

This should not really be happening. We tried over 20 years ago to introduce a divorce law, but those who supported it were condemned in the pulpits of Catholic churches all over the country as people who would go to Hell.

A Briton escaped from the Philippines with his girlfriend and baby daughter after being threatened with seven years in jail for adultery.

David Scott was remanded in custody last year with his married girlfriend Cynthia Delfino. The couple were accused of adultery by officials in the devoutly Catholic country.

They were told that their daughter, Janina, was to be handed over to Ms Delfino's estranged husband, Noriel Delfino, on the grounds that the child was born before the Delfinos' marriage was annulled, officials said.

Update: Escaped to Britain

20th August 2008m see article from dailymail.co.uk

A British man who faced a seven-year prison sentence in the Philippines for adultery is being allowed to return to the UK with his girlfriend and baby this week.

David Scott, 37, has had his application for partner Cynthia Delfino to accompany him granted by the Home Office on humanitarian grounds.

A British woman fighting jail in Dubai after being convicted for adultery insisted she had been wrongly accused by her ex-husband.

Marnie Pearce has been sentenced to six months in prison by an Arab court. She may lose the right to custody of her two sons after being found guilty at the end of November.

She launched an appeal on Christmas Day, backed by the Tory MP Andrew MacKay, who raised her case with the Foreign Office. Pearce cannot leave Dubai until her conviction is quashed and is desperate to leave with her sons Laith, seven, and four-year-old Ziad: I am so scared that if I go to jail I will never see them again.

In Dubai, non-Muslim adulterers cannot be punished by flogging but can face up to 18 months in prison.

The British expatriate met her Egyptian husband Ihab El-Labban in Oman in 1992. The couple married in the Seychelles, had two children and moved to Dubai, where they have lived for the last 15 years.

Pearce said the marriage had been in difficulty for some time but fell apart last year and the couple separated.  She claimed that subsequently she was falsely accused of adultery on the basis of evidence purportedly showing she had cheated on El-Labban.

Pearce then claimed that he burst into her home with several police officers in March: The police came in the front and back door with my husband who accused me of having an affair.

Pearce, who finally received her divorce decree absolute last month, said she was arrested, placed in handcuffs and interrogated by police. Nearly four months later, she claims she was told by police that they had gathered evidence - including used condoms, a man's underpants and a man's jacket. Pearce was ordered to give a DNA sample but she claims the man alleged to have been involved was never contacted and has been free to travel back and forth to Dubai ever since.

She said her husband took possession of the family home and she and her sons were forced to stay in a shelter before seeking refuge with a friend.

On November 27 Pearce was convicted of adultery and sentenced to six months in prison. She launched her appeal on December 25 and the case was adjourned until January 8.

Michael Cardy, a friend of a British mother convicted of adultery in Dubai, has said she is devastated after her appeal failed.

Marnie Pearce's sentence was reduced from six to three months and the court ordered her to be deported. She now fears she will lose custody of her two children.

Cardy insisted she was innocent and said there was no way on this earth she had committed adultery - claims made by her ex-husband, Egyptian national Ihab El-Labban. Cardy said Pearce needs to raise at least ฃ10,000 to hire a specialist lawyer so she can fight for custody of her children through the UK courts.

Cardy said: I'm not giving up hope; I won't stop fighting for that girl, I'm disgusted at the way a country can treat women. Men can abuse the law here because under Sharia law the man rules the roost.

Amnesty International said that if she were jailed it would consider her a prisoner of conscience. Criminalising the sex lives of consenting adults is never right, let alone using this to back-up family laws which already discriminate against women said Kate Allen, UK director of  Amnesty International.

Update: 2nd Appeal

8th February 2009

The family of mum-of-two Marnie Pearce, who was sentenced to jail in Dubai, hear she has gone into hiding.

Marnie is preparing to mount her next appeal against the three-month prison sentence she was given in January for adultery.

A British mother convicted of adultery in Dubai has been taken to jail to start her three-month sentence after an emotional parting with her two young children.

A friend said Marnie Pearce was hysterical when she had to hand over her two sons to her former husband. She fears Ihab El-Labban, an Egyptian, will leave the country with Latih, seven, and Ziad, four, and she will never see them again.

Her former husband was present at the arranged meeting and took charge of their sons.

Pearce, originally from Bracknell, Berkshire, was accused of adultery – an offence under Dubai law – four months after their marriage had broken down. In November, she was convicted of adultery and sentenced to six months in jail. In January, the Emirate's Appeal Court upheld her conviction but reduced her sentence to three months. The court also fined her 3,000 dirhams (£600) and ordered her to be deported after she completes her sentence.

Update: Jailed

19th March 2009. See article from news.bbc.co.uk

A British mother jailed for adultery in Dubai has lost a second appeal and will stay in prison. Marnie Pearce hoped to be freed but will have to serve the rest of a three month term. It had been reduced from six months at her first appeal.

She will be deported on her release and fears she will lose custody of her two young children.

Pearce says her ex-husband accused her of adultery to gain custody of their two children.

Update: Custody Lost

25th March. See article from guardian.co.uk

A British mother who was jailed in Dubai for adultery today lost custody of her two children, a friend of hers said. Marnie Pearc has not seen her sons – Laith, seven, and Ziad, four – since she was imprisoned in the Arab emirate last month.

A family court in Dubai ruled that she would lose custody of her two sons, who will stay with their Egyptian father. The supply teacher, originally from Bracknell in Berkshire, was found guilty of adultery by a Dubai court in November after her former husband, Ihab el-Labban, accused her of cheating on him.

Her friend Sandy Norman said today's family court hearing in Dubai was a done deal. She said: As she was found guilty of adultery, it makes her an unfit mother. To my knowledge, no woman has won custody of her children in Dubai. It will be down to Marnie now to seek whatever custody rights from the UK when she returns.

Human rights group Amnesty International has called for her immediate and unconditional release, describing her as a prisoner of conscience. It argues that, regardless of claims against her, consenting sex between adults is not criminal matter.

Update: To Be Freed

26th April 2009. See article from dailymail.co.uk

A British woman jailed in Dubai for adultery is to be released – several weeks before the end of her three-month sentence.

In a U-turn by officials, Marnie Pearce has also been told that the order for her immediate deportation has been suspended, so she can stay in the country to fight for custody of her two young sons.

It is believed the Dubai judiciary agreed to review the deportation after a series of meetings with Foreign Office staff last week.

Update: Freed

28th April 2009. See article from news.bbc.co.uk

A spokesman for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) confirmed Ms Pearce left the Dubai jail where she had been held, on Monday morning.

Update: Access

16th August 2009. See article from dailymail.co.uk

Beaming and hugging her young sons, this is the moment Marnie Pearce had prayed for. The Briton, who was jailed for adultery in Dubai, had not seen Ziad, five, and Laith, eight, for almost six months. But all that changed on Tuesday when they were reunited for the day after she won a desperate fight for access.

The decision giving her limited weekly access is the best she could have hoped for. Under sharia law, a woman convicted of adultery loses all child custody rights.

A British woman accused of cheating on her estranged husband in Dubai has spent three weeks in a police cell waiting to face trial.

Sally Antia was arrested for breaching the emirate's repressive morality laws on May 2 this year.

She pleaded guilty to adultery at her first appearance in court last Sunday. However, bail was denied and she is still behind bars. Her alleged lover, who has denied adultery, is also in custody.

Both were told they would remain locked up until they face court for a second time this week.

Human rights campaigners insist Mrs Antia, a Merseyside-born businesswoman, should never have been arrested and must be granted bail immediately.

Her estranged husband has been accused of reporting Mrs Antia to police to improve his chances of winning custody of their children. Vincent Antia, from Lincolnshire, is said to have told police his wife was seeing another man before their divorce had come through - a crime in the United Arab Emirates.

Under UAE law, the maximum punishment for adultery is a year in prison followed by deportation.

A 22-year-old unmarried Bangladeshi woman who was caned 39 times for alleging a neighbour was the father of her son is fighting for her life in hospital, police said.

The case has shocked the nation, with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordering the woman to be shifted from her village home to the capital for proper medical treatment.

Local police chief Moshiur Rahman told AFP that the woman had angered Islamic clerics when she told friends that a neighbour had fathered her six-year-old son. They called her and the alleged father to appear before a makeshift Islamic court, but the man denied the paternity claim, Rahman said: He held a Koran in one hand and swore to the village clerics that he was not the father of the boy. The village court found him not guilty.

They also issued a fatwa that the woman should be caned 39 times for lying. The woman, seriously injured after the caning, was admitted to a local hospital but was later shifted to the country's largest hospital in Dhaka on the orders of the Prime Minister, Rahman said.

Two of the clerics have been arrested for repression of women, he said, and DNA testing had been arranged to determine the father of the child.

Update: Another Kangaroo Court Beating

4th June 2009. See article from straitstimes.com

A man and a woman in Bangladesh have been caned for adultery. The punishment was carried out on the order of village elders in the northeast of the country. Police said two people have been arrested in connection with the incident, although the couple were said to be uninjured.

The village court found them guilty of adultery under Islamic syariah law. The villagers got bundles of 11 sticks and hit them 10 times. They claimed it was a symbolic punishment, local police chief Amal Kumar Dhar told AFP.

Doctors examined the couple but neither was injured, he said, but added police had arrested two people for repression, abuse and mental torture.

A British woman and her lover have been jailed for two months for adultery in Dubai a crime in the repressive UAE.

Sally Antia was arrested after her estranged husband Vincent Antia told police she was conducting an affair with Mark Hawkins.

Mr Antia is thought to have informed police about the affair to benefit from laws under which wronged husbands get custody of the children.

Mrs Antia and her boyfriend will spend the next month in the spartan Al Aweer prison after which they will be deported to Britain. They were sentenced to two months but will serve only one after the month they have already spent in the cells is taken into account.

Under Emirati law, there is very little legal provision for Mrs Antia to get custody of her two girls, aged 11 and 13, who are being looked after by their father in Dubai. And being convicted of a dishonour crime could wreck her chances completely.

Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen said: Sally and Mark should not be in jail right now and should never have been facing criminal charges in the first place. The sex lives of consenting adults shouldn't be a criminal matter. Sally and Mark should be released, immediately and unconditionally.

Update: Sentence Completed

18th June 2009. See article from dailymail.co.uk

A British mother jailed for adultery in Dubai has been freed - straight into the arms of the husband who put her behind bars. Sally Antia has apparently decided to forgive Vincent Antia even though he told police she was having an affair, which is illegal in the Islamic country.

Both Antia and her lover Hawkins served six weeks of their two-month sentence. Two weeks were spent in prison, the rest being in a police cell awaiting trial.

A South African woman has been jailed in the United Arab Emirates for sleeping with her boss in the latest example of the country's hardline approach to sex outside marriage.

Roxanne Hillier has now been jailed for three months even though she agreed to carry out medical tests to prove there had been no sexual contact.

Roxanne Hillier was asleep in a room above the dive shop where she worked in the emirate of Sharjah when police broke down the locked door and arrested her.

They claimed she was having an affair with her boss, an Emirati, who was downstairs at the time repairing the shop's dive equipment. She was also accused of being alone in the same room with him, also technically a crime in Sharjah.

Her father, Freddie Hillier, said police records showed the raid was ordered after someone rang them to say her boss was using the room above the shop to have sex with foreign women: We believe it was aimed at the boss of the place. My daughter was caught in the crossfire.

Hillier said his daughter's big mistake was to sign a confession in Arabic that she did not understand: They were shouting at her in Arabic. She was scared and made the mistake of bowing to pressure. She thought that was going to get her off.

She was brought before a court on May 22 for a fifteen-minute hearing conducted in Arabic. Last week, she was brought before the court again to be told briefly that she had been found guilty and sentenced to three months' jail. Her boss was sentenced to six months.

An appeal in the case is due to be heard on Sunday.

Update: South African

Thanks to Freddie who pointed out that Roxanne is South African, not British as widely reported.

The woman recently sentenced to three months in jail in the United Arab Emirates on sex-related charges has lost her appeal against the sentence.

But, in a strange twist, the man Roxanne Hillier was alleged to have had sex with, and who had also been sentenced on these charges, has been released from jail.

As far as we understand, there is no other way that we can take this further in court. But we are exploring other options, Maxine Hillier said shortly after her sister's appeal was heard on Monday.

Hillier, 22, a dive instructor, had been fighting for her freedom since her arrest just more than a month ago. She and the owner of the centre were arrested during a police raid on May 16. She was later found guilty of being alone in a room with a man to whom she was not related, and of engaging in sex out of wedlock.

Her boss, a UAE citizen who is married with children, was sentenced to six months' jail and Hillier to three months.

Hillier's family unsurprisingly insisted the charges were trumped up and that foul play was involved. Strangely the authorities have listed Hillier as muslim when she is in fact christian. They said she had been working late the day of her arrest and had decided to sleep in a locked guest room at the dive centre, while her boss was working in another room. Her father Freddie said the police had forced their way into the centre and broke down Hillier's door.

Maxine Hillier said her family was battling to accept the appeal decision: The family is taking it badly. My sister and my mother are taking a lot of strain. However, they were still hoping to use the release of Hillier's boss to help her sister.

An 18-year-old woman was flogged in public outside the Maldives Injustice Building and sentenced to a year of house arrest for having extra-marital sex.

The woman received 100 lashes after confessing to having extra-marital sex with two men on separate occasions earlier this year. She was taken to hospital after the lashing.

Judge Abdulla Mohamed, chief judge of the Criminal Court, said the courts could not prosecute the two men as Rahma was unable to provide any details about the first man and the second man denied his involvement.

Latest statistics from the department of judicial administration's website reveal that in 2006, out of 184 lashed for extra-marital sex, 146 were women.

Speaking to Minivan News MP for Galolhu Eva Abdulla said, It seems a bit disproportionate considering there always has to be two people involved. She further pointed to other forms of corporal punishment in Sharia law, which were not practiced in the Maldives: We don't cut off the hands of all those who steal and we don't implement the death sentence so why do we continue with these very inhumane practices, especially when the statistics show that the victims are women.

But, Judge Abdulla said more women were sentenced than men because while men were able to deny the crime, pregnancy often implicated women. Without a confession, extra-marital sex cases are very difficult to prosecute, he said, as they required the testimony of four witnesses.

Flogging is dispensed with a leather paddle called a duraa in the Maldives. On why floggings were public, Abdulla said the method was prescribed in the Qur'an and its purpose was to act as a deterrent: Because the public should know this lady or man have done these things and they will stay away from these things.

Our daughter / sister, Roxanne Hillier has been in prison in the UAE since 16th May. She and her boss were found guilty and convicted to 3 months and 6 months, respectively for having sex out of wedlock, this is despite the fact that the medical tests were negative. They were also found guilty of being alone in a room, despite the fact that the police broke into the locked bedroom and found Roxanne alone there. Her boss was caught elsewhere with tools in his hands.

Roxanne lost her appeal and was sent back to prison to complete her full sentence, while her boss was acquitted on the charge of having sex with her and was released immediately.

How can she be guilty of having sex with him, yet he is innocent and did not have sex with her?

We ask that you please log into her petition site Free Roxanne Hillier from prison in the UAE Please sign the petition and send it on to everyone in your address book. Also please put the word out to everyone you can. We desperately need all the signatures that we can get to make a difference.

We also ask that you please log into Roxanne's support wall, where you can leave her a note of support. These messages are printed and given to Roxanne and help to keep her spirits up and keep her sane. The Facebook Support wall is called Friend support for Roxanne Hillier

We (her family) thank you for reading this and would also like to thank all those that have already done so, from the bottoms of our hearts. Roxanne is innocent and has been unfairly imprisoned.

Kind regards,

Freddie, Ina and Maxine Hillier.

Update: Roxanne Freed

24th July 2009.

Our prayers were answered this morning and Roxanne was suddenly released (we believe) by an order from His Highness, Sheik Sultan Bin Mohammed Al-Quasimi, Ruler of Sharjah.

We, the Hillier family would like to thank you all for your support in signing this petition. Words cannot express our gratitude to each and every one of you.

This petition is now officially closed. Please visit Facebook Friend support for Roxanne Hillier where we will keep an update for the time being.

A woman accused of adultery in Abu Dhabi changed her guilty plea after a court judge warned her confession carried a sentence of death by stoning under sharia law.

The case against the Saudi woman, referred to only as R.M., was brought by her father at Abu Dhabi's Criminal Court of First Instance.

You have the right to deny, the judge was quoted as saying, following woman's admission: The Prophet urged people towards denial in these cases.

Married and divorced men and women who commit adultery face the death penalty by stoning under sharia law. Under the same law, premarital sex is punishable by 100 lashes.

Four reliable witnesses must testify that adultery took place in order to convict a person that denies the charge.

The woman's co-defendant, an Emirati man, referred to only as S.M., faces the same charges. He was not in court.

Roxanne Hiller tells her story about being jailed in the UAE on charges of adultery.

A 16-year-old girl who was raped in Bangladesh has been given 101 lashes for conceiving during the assault.

The girl's father was also fined and warned the family would be branded outcasts from their village if he did not pay.

The girl was raped by a 20-year-old villager in Brahmanbaria district in April last year.

Bangladesh's Daily Star newspaper reported that she was so ashamed following the attack that she did not lodge a complaint.

Her rape emerged after her pregnancy test and Muslim elders in the village issued a fatwa insisting that the girl be kept in isolation until her family agreed to corporal punishment.

Her rapist was pardoned by the elders. She told the newspaper the rapist had spoiled her life. I want justice, she said.

Two Indonesians were paraded nude through their village in a province dominated by Islam, following a beating by mob angered when it was alleged that the pair had been caught having extramarital sex.

Bus is an official with the Indonesian Ministry of Religious Affairs in the province of Aceh Barat. He and Yus were caught on April 7 in the woman's home by a mob.

Islamic police, who impose Islam's repressive Sharia religious laws, said that the pair were dragged out of the woman's home, stripped nude and paraded through the streets of the town. They were then manacled and tied to a post were they were beaten with sticks until black and blue. Police intervened before a summary execution by the mob could be carried out. Even so, the offending man and woman may still face further corporal punishment that is required by Sharia: nine lashes each in public if they are found guilty of adultery.

The Sharjah Sharia Court of First Instance sentenced an Arab man to 100 lashes, one year in jail and deportation while his partner will be jailed for six months for adultery and one month for staying illegally in the country, followed by deportation.

The Syrian man, identified as BM, was accused of committing adultery with a Filipino woman, identified as RS Both of them were also accused of having a child outside wedlock.

According to court documents, police had received a tip off that a Filipino woman identified as JL was raising a child who is not her own baby. Police arrested RS, who confessed that she committed adultery with BM several times and she had given birth to a baby from him. BM,.

According to the court documents, the punishment for committing adultery is lashing if the persons are not married while it will be stoning if they are married and committed adultery.