Surprise visit for Peru Two from One Direction’s Irish 'daddy'
Prisoners taken by surprise as 1D manager drops in with Easter eggs
THE tour manager of boyband One Direction has visited the Peru Two in prison.
Security specialist Paul Higgins – known by 1D fans as the band’s ‘daddy’, ‘babysitter’ and ‘unofficial sixth member’ – went to see Michaella McCollum and Melissa Reid at the notorious Virgen de Fatima prison where they are locked up for attempting to smuggle €1.8m worth of cocaine.
The band were on the eve of a sell-out gig in Lima last weekend when their tour manager paid the pair a surprise visit.
Not only did Mr Higgins, who travels the world with One Direction and has almost one million Twitter followers, surprise cellmates Michaella and Melissa by turning up at the prison, but he brought them chocolate Easter eggs and a KFC takeaway.
The Irish Mail on Sunday understands he gave the 20-year-old women a rare first-hand insight into the lives of heartthrobs Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson and Liam Payne and talked about how they had learned to cope with worldwide fame.
He also handed out free tickets for the Lima leg of 1D’s Where We Are world tour to the children of families visiting the prison last Saturday.
Last night, a source close to the band said: ‘Paul does a lot of work for charity that you just don’t hear about. He was in Peru with One Direction and during his downtime he decided that the Christian thing to do would be to visit an Irish person who was in prison.
‘He felt that seeing a friendly face would give her a lift. He does not know her [Michaella] or the family and he did not tell any of One Direction that he was going.
‘He was just trying to do a good deed as he felt that there wouldn’t be too many visitors coming from Ireland to see the girls. He is not there to judge them for what they did, nor does he condone anything they have done.’
Melissa’s father, Billy, 54, said last night: ‘It’s great of him to do that and take time out of his busy schedule to visit them. I’m sure Melissa and Michaella would have been thrilled.
‘Obviously the band themselves wouldn’t have been able to go to the prison but it’s really nice that Paul Higgins went to see the two girls. It will really lift their spirits to get to meet and speak to the manager of such a massive band. They do get visitors but no one like this, it’s a refreshing change.
‘I think it will have helped the girls to hear about how One Direction cope with fame, because since everything has happened they’ve been pushed into the spotlight, but obviously for different reasons. I worry about how they will cope when they are released as they will suddenly be recognised by so many people and it will be tough.’
Higgins, who is from Bray, Co. Wicklow, played a starring role in One Direction’s 2013 film, This Is Us, and was filmed play-fighting with the band. Nicknamed Pauly, he was a bodyguard to Westlife and Girls Aloud in their heyday, and is so close to the band that they were at his wedding.
One Direction were mobbed by fans during their visit to Peru and were even forced to switch hotels to escape the mayhem. At their performance in Lima last Sunday, hundreds of terrified young fans were crushed and nearly 50 needed medical treatment.
Their tour manager’s surprise visit comes as Melissa, from Glasgow, continues to cling to hopes of a transfer back to Britain to serve the rest of her sentence.
She and Michaella, from Dungannon, Co. Tyrone, were jailed for six years and eight months in December after admitting attempting to smuggle €1.8m worth of cocaine. In a letter home last month, Melissa revealed something of their lives behind bars: ‘Gossip around the prison is that Michaella and I have been dealing/consuming drugs, so today we were subject to our privacy being removed again and our whole cell turned upside down unfortunately!
‘But I have learnt to go with the flow when this happens.’
She also revealed that they had attended a special Easter Mass and parade, and wrote that she was grateful that she and Michaella still ‘have a right to our religion’.