A British man jailed in Thailand for nearly 18 months on visa fraud charges has described conditions inside Bangkok Remand Prison, including alleged stabbings, guard violence, and witnessing a sexual assault on his first night.
Oliver Hardy, a 27 year old heating engineer from Croydon, says he had saved for five years before travelling to Thailand in January 2023 for what he intended as a holiday. He claims a series of events he attributes to fraud and misunderstanding led to his imprisonment for one year and four months.
The Sun reported that Hardy was convicted in 2024 of overstaying his visa, leaving Thailand via an unauthorised route without immigration inspection, forging immigration stamps for international travel, forging official seals and documents, and using forged immigration stamps and documents.
He was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison, reduced to one year and four months after a guilty plea.
How he says it began
Hardy says he initially overstayed after paying £1,200 (approx. 52,500 baht) to a man he met, who claimed he could arrange a long-stay visa for Muay Thai training. He says the arrangement turned out to be a scam, by which point he had already overstayed.
He says the arrangement turned out to be a scam, by which point he had already overstayed. Facing deportation, arrest, and a potential lifetime ban, Hardy says he paid an additional £1,800 (approx. 78,800 baht) to a visa agency in Pattaya in December 2023.
He claims the agency flew him to southern Thailand, transported him by taxi to the Malaysian border, and arranged onward travel to Kuala Lumpur, from where he flew back to Bangkok and received a new 30-day visa stamp.
He says he subsequently extended his visa without incident, including a visit to an immigration centre.
Hardy says his situation changed after he moved to Bali in February 2024 and then returned to Bangkok on a five-day trip to visit his sister.
At the airport, he claims an immigration officer identified two stamps in his passport that did not appear in the system, which Hardy says he had not previously examined. He alleges an official had stamped his passport with records of a flight to England that he had not taken.
An eight-hour interview with immigration officials followed. Hardy says he was not believed and claims officials insisted he had made the stamps himself. He was subsequently charged with using forged documents and overstaying.
Immigration detention and court proceedings
Hardy spent 46 days in an Immigration Detention Centre, sharing a cell he describes as severely overcrowded, holding around 120 inmates, with a non-functioning toilet.
He says he was told charges had been dropped, and he would be sent home, but claims he was instead returned to court and prosecuted on three additional charges, bringing the total to five, carrying a minimum sentence of nine years and a maximum of 24.
He was then transferred to Bangkok Remand Prison.
Conditions inside Bangkok Remand Prison
Hardy says he shared a cell with 22 men and slept on the concrete floor. On his first night, he claims he witnessed a sexual assault. He says the experience led him to reassess how he carried himself inside the prison.
He says he was later targeted by a group of inmates he describes as connected to organised crime, and claims he was stabbed in the leg with a sharpened plastic implement during the encounter. He also described witnessing multiple suicide attempts by other inmates during his time at the facility.
After a year behind bars, Hardy was transferred to Thon Buri prison, where he spent a further four months. He alleges prison guards at Thon Buri entered the facility drunk on multiple occasions and beat inmates with wooden sticks.
Hardy was released after serving one year and four months in total. He is now travelling and documents his journey on Instagram. At the time of publication, he was in Vietnam, with plans to reach Brazil before the end of the year.
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