Tori Towey: I can’t stop thinking about the other women in Dubai police station

An Irish woman has said she finds it “harrowing” and “so scary” to think about the other women who she spent hours with in a Dubai police station as she was charged with attempting suicide.

Tori Towey, 28, from Co Roscommon, said she was told nothing by the authorities and had feared she would be incarcerated for months in the prison cell of the Al Barsha police station.

Ms Towey’s case was raised in the Irish parliament on Tuesday, where politicians were told she was a victim of domestic violence and had been charged with attempting suicide and alcohol abuse after being attacked.

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

The flight attendant had a travel ban imposed on her by Dubai authorities, which was lifted on Wednesday after the Irish government intervened in the case.

The charges against her were also dropped this week.

Ms Towey spoke about how she was brought to the police station on the night she attempted to take her own life and about the women she met in the cells.

She said there were 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 OK. But she had been there 10 years, she said.”

Ms Towey said she was in the prison from around 4am and was released at around 11am, and believes she was only released because she was able to call her mother Caroline beforehand.

“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.

“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.”

They don't speak to you. They don't tell you what's happening to you. They don't tell you anything

During a live discussion on the social media site X on Friday, Ms Towey explained how she woke up with police and paramedics around her that night.

“So 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, told me to put it on.

“I put it on and they just put me in the police car, brought me to the station. They made me blow into this thing and took my fingerprint and then I had called my mother because I was hysterical – I was like ‘I’m in a police station, I don’t know why, I don’t know why I’m here.’

“Because I already knew a little bit about them just putting people in jail, I said ‘I won’t have my phone anymore. No-one is going to know what’s happened to me. No-one’s going to know how to contact me.’

“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.

“Then they took me, they strip-searched me, they took all my jewellery off.

“I had a bellybutton 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 OK, I’ll take it out myself’.

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

“They don’t speak to you. They don’t tell you what’s happening to you. They don’t tell you anything.

“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.

“I sat down, and the girls that I met were lovely, some of them were there for seven months in this tiny little corridor with a mattress on the floor.

“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.

“That’s when I started to panic and I was thinking ‘I could be here for months’.

“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.”