Scot held in Manila rejects chance to come home to fight charges

A Scot who is being held in a notorious detention centre in the Philippines has turned down the chance to be deported so that he can fight the charges against him.

Frank Bohlert has been detained in the Bicutan Taguig City facility in Manila for three weeks after his visa expired and his former partner made claims that he had abused her.

The 61-year-old has managed to communicate with his family in Scotland by using another man’s mobile phone from the cell he has been sharing with 11 other prisoners.

Mr Bohlert was taken to the facility by officers after his expartner, who he met online, made allegations that he had been mistreating her.

He has since been given the option of being deported back to the UK but believes his former partner has now stolen his laptop, car and money and he wants to stay in the country to get all his belongings back.

He was charged for remaining in the country without a visa, working while only possessing a holiday visa and assaulting his former partner after he refused to leave.

The divorced father-of-one moved to the Philippines after meeting her on an internet site and the couple ran his Twilights Rock Bistro bar together until he was detained on 14 September.

His step-brother Graeme Simpson, of Aboyne, in Aberdeenshire, said: “He’s got nothing left. He wants to stay out there and fight to get his money back. I don’t know what good it will do.

“I think he’s banging his head against a brick wall. Everything is in her name because only Filipino people can buy property. He could have been back home.

“It’s going to be difficult for him because he’s a foreigner in a different country. He’s got a phone in his cell now which they are letting him use.”

The Foreign Office has been providing support tomr Bohlert, who suffers from high blood pressure, after his family contacted them to help get him home.

Mr Simpson said his stepbrother’s visa was about to run out when police knocked on the door and took him to the detentioncentre.hedescribed his relative, who was in a relationship with his ex-partner for six years, as “heartbroken”.

Mr Bohlert spoke of his despair in a series of social media posts after he was detained. He wrote: “I have been illegally detained, no arrest, no charges, no nothing, only allegations against me.”

Mr Simpson said his stepbrother had moved to the country to start a new life shortly after he was made redundant from his machinery parts sales job in Scotland.