Laura Plummer’s brother says she made ‘an innocent, honest mistake’ when she brought tramadol pills into country for her husband’s back pain

The brother of the British woman detained in Egypt for bringing nearly 300 tramadol pills into the country has said that it was “an innocent, honest mistake”.

Laura Plummer, 33, was arrested after 290 tramadol tablets and some naproxen for her Egyptian husband’s sore back were found in her suitcase.

As a result, she was detained at Hurghada international airport on the Red Sea coast on suspicion of trafficking drugs on 9 October.

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Plummer has been told she may face up to 25 years in jail, or even the death penalty. She is due back in court on Thursday, for her third hearing

James Plummer, Laura’s brother, said his sister had been given the prescription drugs by a colleague at the shop in Hull she works in, after she’d told her about her husband’s pain.

“So she took those over with her,” Mr Plummer said. “Laura didn’t even check what they were, she didn’t even know there was tramadol in the bag. There was also naproxen as well.”

Her local MP, Karl Turner, for Kingston upon Hull, has said that the Foreign Office are involved and that the British embassy in Cairo has provided her with a lawyer, following reports that her father had spent £10,000 on her legal fees.

Plummer was visiting her husband of 18 months on what her brother called “a routine holiday”. She visits him two to four times a year, although it is not clear if their marriage is official.

“It is difficult to get certain things in Egypt apparently so she’d taken talcum powder, shaving gel and razor blades and all sorts of things,” he said. “Clearly, [she was] very, very naive.”

Tramadol is the most abused drug in Egypt, according to a minister. The synthetic opioid is only available on prescription but is often obtained illegally and used as a heroin substitute, as it is elsewhere in the world.

Egypt’s drug control fund, which has a free helpline, received more calls about tramadol than any other drug in August, according to Ghada Wali, the minister for social solidarity. It also received 48,000 calls between January and June for issues regarding the drug, which is only available on prescription in the UK.

The scale of the problem in Egypt may well be the root cause of the strident action taken by authorities.

Plummer has been living in a cramped cell with 25 other women for almost a month, since she was detained.

Turner said: “The family describe Laura to me as somebody who is very naive. Her father said to me, ‘look, the truth is she wouldn’t know tramadol from a Panadol. She wouldn’t have a clue that she was doing something unlawful’.”

A British embassy representative has been regularly visiting Plummer and has been communicating with her family.

“Her family said to some extent it is better that she’s with lots of people in a cell than in a cell on her own because people are around her,” said Turner. “But the conditions are going to be extremely basic and I’m sure she’s petrified by what is unfolding before her.”