British Student, 23, Jailed For Life In Dubai After ‘Very Stupid Mistake’
It’s been a few weeks since we last heard about a British person being jailed abroad, but we now have this very serious case of a student from Liverpool who’s been given a life sentence in Dubai this week.
Mia O’Brien, 23, from Huyton, Liverpool, ‘made a very stupid mistake’, according to her mum, who started a GoFundMe for help with travel and legal fees, but has since deleted it, for some reason.
We actually don’t even know what the ‘very stupid mistake’ was, because Mia’s mum won’t tell us. But it probably isn’t too hard to guess.
In the since-deleted fundraiser, mum Danielle, 46, wrote: ‘Mia has been given a life sentence over in Dubai and she is now in central prison.
‘As you can all probably imagine, as her mother I am absolutely devastated. I haven’t seen my daughter since last October.
‘Mia is only 23 years old and has never done a bad thing in her life. This is a young girl, who went to university to do law, and unfortunately got mixed up in the wrong so-called friends and made a very stupid mistake and is now paying the price.
‘So all I ask is if you can donate anything you can spare, even if it’s a £1, it could help up massively and I would be forever grateful. Thank you so much.’
Later, she added: ‘I just want to thank everyone for their donations so far, this money will be used to send to my daughter Mia, and also for any legal fees that may arise, and maybe even to go towards getting family over to Dubai to see her, as none of us have seen Mia since last October, so thank you all so much ❤️’
Danielle told the Daily Mail: ‘She’s going through it at the minute. She’s just been transferred to another prison after getting a life sentence. It’s been a massive shock.’
In the UAE, a life sentence usually means 15 years of imprisonment, which can be given in cases of drug trafficking and possession, human trafficking, murder or attempted murder, and terrorism-related activities. We’re going to guess that Mia’s predicament has something to do with either trafficking or possessing drugs, since we’ve already blogged countless stories about Brits being busted for the same thing over there in 2025 alone.
Brits are warned by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the risk around drug-related offences in particular, stating that UAE authorities ‘count the presence of drugs in the blood stream as possession’.
Here’s hoping something can be worked out so that Mia doesn’t have to spend the next 15 years of her life in a Dubai prison. Of course, she did something terribly stupid and is now paying the price, but at the end of the day she’s only 23 years old and it’s brutal to think that she’ll be nearly 40 by the time she’s out. Her prime years totally wasted. Not to mention all the stress and heartache for her mum and the rest of the family.
Best of luck with it, Mia and family. Let this be a warning to the rest of us.
For the British man who was left devastated after being kicked out of Dubai due to his face tattoos, click HERE.
