Tori Towey: Women in Dubai cells is ‘harrowing’ thought

“There was a time where I didn’t think it was even possible that I was going to be able to come back at all.”

An Irish woman who had been under a travel ban in Dubai after being charged with attempted suicide has said she finds it “harrowing” to think about the women she spent hours with in a police cell.

Tori Towey from County Roscommon was facing criminal charges, including consuming alcohol, and had her passport destroyed.

The 28-year-old’s case was raised in the Dáil (lower house of Irish parliament) on Tuesday, where politicians were told she was a victim of domestic violence.

The flight attendant had a travel ban imposed on her by United Arab Emirate (UAE) authorities, which was lifted on Wednesday after the Irish government intervened in the case.

The charges against Ms Towey were also dropped this week and she returned to the Republic Ireland on Thursday.

Speaking on a live discussion on the social media site X, formerly Twitter, Ms Towey said she feared she would be incarcerated for months in Al Barsha police station.

She spoke of how she was brought to the police station on the night she attempted to take her own life, according to the Press Association.

“I woke up with the door being opened. There was a lot of police there, paramedics, they gave me oxygen,” she said.

“I was in my pyjamas, so they handed me a green dress of mine [and] told me to put it on,” she said.

Ms Towey said she “knew a little bit” about the Dubai justice system and realised she would soon have her mobile phone confiscated.

“[I thought] no one is going to know what’s happened to me. No one’s going to know how to contact me,” she recalled.

“So that’s when I sent a message to one of my friends and then I called my mother and told her what had happened,” Ms Towey continued.

She was “hysterical” during that phone call, but believes it guaranteed her release.

“I don’t think the police go and call your family for you and tell them, so it would have just looked like I just completely disappeared off the face of the earth,” she said.

“Because I managed to call my mother before we got in there, she was phoning people, phoning the embassy, she was calling the police, she was emailing the police, and I got released.

“I was like: ‘I’m in a police station, I don’t know why, I don’t know why I’m here’.”

Ms Towey detailed how she was breathalysed, had her fingerprints taken and was strip-searched by authorities.

“I had a belly button piercing and they were struggling to take it out. They were pulling at it and ripping at it and hurting me and I was saying: ‘it’s okay, I’ll take it out myself’,” she said.

“They don’t speak to you. They don’t tell you what’s happening to you. They don’t tell you anything,” she added.

“And then I went upstairs and it’s just like this tiny corridor with these individual cells with mattresses on the floor, and there’s so many girls there.”

Ms Towey said she met women of various nationalities – including a woman from the Philippines who said she had been there for 10 years.

“I was obviously very anxious, I was very worried and she kind of calmed me down and told me everything was going to be okay, but she had been there 10 years,” she detailed.

She described the women she met in the police station as “lovely”, but their situations made her think she “could be here for months”.

“They’ve never gone outside. They’ve never been told what’s happening to them. And they’re there for very ‘wrong place, wrong time’, like very minor things,” she said.

“I got out, but I keep thinking about the other girls that are stuck in there for months and months and months. I’ve never been able to stop thinking about that.”

She added: “It’s harrowing to think about. It’s something that I’ve thought about a lot since leaving there.

“I just feel so sorry for those people, so sorry for them, because I feel like they will spend their whole entire life there and never get out.”

• 28 June – After allegedly being assaulted, Ms Towey is charged with attempting suicide
• 9 July – Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald raises her situation in the Dáil and says her passport has been destroyed and she has been banned from travelling
• Taoiseach Simon Harris says the Irish government will do what it can to help Ms Towey
• 10 July – Mr Harris says he has spoken to Ms Towey and that she is increasingly positive about the situation
• The taoiseach later confirms the travel ban has been lifted and she is preparing to travel to the airport and home to Ireland
• The Dubai Public Prosecution confirms the case against Ms Towey has been dropped
• 11 July – Ms Towey and her mother return to their home in the Republic of Ireland