[DREW]

END OF THE LINE


Paul Chetwynd-Talbot remains in a cell in Patong Police Station. He admits killing his girlfriend, Debra O’Hanlon, but claims it was not intentional.


On August 6, nearly a week after the violent death of his girlfriend, Debra O’Hanlon, the man who admits to causing her death, Paul Chetwynd-Talbot, was transferred from Wachira Phuket Hospital – where he was treated for an apparent suicide attempt – to the cells in Kathu Police Station in Patong. There, he granted an interview, through the bars of his cell, with the Gazette’s Sangkhae Leelanapaporn.





Gazette: Why did you try to commit suicide? Was it because you were worried about going to jail?

Paul Chetwynd-Talbot: I don’t care about jail. I don’t care about anything else. [Debra] was the most important thing in my life. I certainly did not mean to kill her. We had an argument. I threw her across the room and I think her neck broke. I tried to revive her. She didn’t wake up and I didn’t want to live any more so I tried to kill myself.

Gazette: I read in other accounts that you said she slapped you and you just wanted to stop her.

PC-T: We had a silly row over nothing. That night we were celebrating because she had bought my plane ticket to go home. She had come back to Thailand to take me home.

My business here had not gone well at all, so she came to Thailand. I had no money. She paid for my ticket home, she paid for my visa extension, she paid for all of that.

We were out with friends celebrating at a bar called the Dog’s Bollocks. We got home. We had a silly argument over the last drink we had.

She came out from the loo. I said something – I can’t remember what – it was silly, we were both very drunk. She slapped me and I threw her across the bed.

I was drunk. I threw her harder than I meant to throw her and her head hit the [head]board. I think as her head hit the [head]board, her neck snapped.

After that I shook her and shook her and tried to wake her up. There was nothing. Her eyes were open but just nothing there.

I was in a frenzy, panicking. I didn’t know what to do. I shook her and shook her and shook her for four or five minutes. She was not going to wake up.

So I decided I didn’t want to live. I broke open my razor and slashed my arms, I slashed my elbows because I wanted to die. There was blood everywhere and then I passed out.

Gazette: So she wasn’t breathing?

PC-T: She was already dead. When she hit the thing she broke her neck. Her eyes were open but no sound, no breathing, nothing.

Gazette: There were some reports that she was stabbed in the neck.

PC-T: It’s not true. When the autopsy comes out [the finding will be that] there’s no mark on Debra. Maybe her jaw, her neck is broken where her head hit.

Gazette: It was just that one time that you hit her?

PC-T: One time. [Demonstrates] I threw her over here. Here is, like, wood. I threw her over here and her head hit … so no blood from Debra. In the room there is blood everywhere. All that blood is [from] me.

Gazette: So you didn’t really want to kill her?

PC-T: Of course I didn’t want to kill her. I was going home with her in two days’ time. I had no intention at all of killing her.

Gazette: The people in the guesthouse said that you had been arguing for two nights before. Is that true?

PC-T: We were always having little petty arguments. We’d been together a long time and we’d disagree over things. We’d have real arguments. But nothing major.

Gazette: That was on Sunday night?

PC-T: Yes.

Gazette: And you had planned to go back with her to England on August 2?

PC-T: Yes

Gazette: There have been reports that you also had a Thai girlfriend. Is that true?

PC-T: No. It’s not true. There was no other girl.

Gazette: How long had you known Ms O’Hanlon?

PC-T: Three years.

Gazette: After you realized that your suicide attempt was unsuccessful, what did you do?

PC-T: I passed out and I woke up the following morning, or afternoon. Of course there’s blood everywhere. I’m very weak because lots of blood has come out of me.

I didn’t know what to do. I panicked. I wanted to throw myself off a cliff or something.

So I put some tissue over the wounds that I’d made, cut some socks in half and pulled them over [the wounds] so there wasn’t blood anymore, put a jumper on, put my jeans on, and walked to the top of the hill – I could hardly make it because I was so exhausted.

Then I drove to the beach and just drove around and I ended up just sitting on the beach staring at the sea, just going over and over and over in my head what I had done.

Gazette: Finally you decided to turn yourself in to the police?

PC-T: Yes. No one found me. No one said anything to me. I felt I had to do the right thing. So I drove to the police station, walked in and asked to speak to someone. I told them very briefly what had happened and they took me to hospital.

My life is over. She was the only thing in my life.

Gazette: You planned to marry her?

PC-T: I was going back to England with her to rebuild a future there. She wanted to work in Australia, I wanted to work for some money, just to build a life in the future.

Gazette: Did you meet her family?

PC-T: Yes. I’ve met all of them. We first came to Thailand last June, and we were out here for seven months. We bought a bar together, and it was just about becoming successful, and then the tsunami came.

We decided it would cost us more – that we would just be putting more and more money into [the business ] for nothing so we went home and we lived with her parents.

I hated it – don’t get me wrong, her parents are beautiful people, but it was very hard for us to live with her parents because [Debra’s] house was rented out while we were away and was still rented.

I could not cope with living with her parents all the time so I came back to Thailand.

In essence, when I came back to Thailand we broke up. But after two months of telephone conversations, we sorted things out and she came back out to Thailand for a week.

We reinstated our love for each other and then she went home again, because she had a job.

The plan was that she would work in England and I would work here for a while and see how that went.

Then she came out this time. My job, my business, hadn’t gone well at all and I had nothing here, and I was going back home with her.

Gazette: After Ms O’Hanlon died, you disappeared. Were you aware that the police were looking for you?

PC-T: No. I didn’t think about it. Obviously, they must have been, but they can’t have looked very hard because I didn’t go very far. I didn’t try to hide. I just wasn’t thinking. My head was a mess.

Gazette: You say your life is over now?

PC-T: I think my life has a long, long way to go [before it is right again]. What do I want to do in my life now? First I have to find out what happens. I’m in Thailand, I can’t speak Thai, I don’t know the law completely.

I know I didn’t murder Debbie. What happened was an accident. If I was in England and the same thing happened, it would be [a charge of] manslaughter, which is very serious, yes, but is a lot less serious than murder.

I [want to] send my deepest condolences to Pat and Malcolm, her mum and dad. This was never meant to happen. I should have seen them by now because, as I say, we were going back to rebuild and make things right.

I’ll spend my life trying to make things right.