Warren Fellows

His father Bill Fellows, was a champion jockey and horse trainer who won the 1949 Melbourne Cup on Foxzami.

He was the youngest of three children, but his two-year-old sister Gail, died in 1950 from a "bowel complication".

His older brother Gary died when he was 36 years old.

Gary was living with his wife Carole and two sons Brett and Rodney.

He also had a son named Adrian Simon who wrote "Milk-Blood".

Fellows was educated at De La Salle College, a Catholic school for boys in Ashfield.

Fellows claims he was nearly expelled from the school when he was caught running a horse betting operation from his school desk.

Warren left De La Salle College and went to Randwick North High School.

Fellows worked in various jobs, including as a barman and an apprentice hairdresser in Double Bay.

It was through his bar work that he first became involved with drug trafficking, successfully importing hash from India with a friend.

On his return to Australia he married and had a child.

Word got out about the successful drug run and a customer in the bar where Fellows worked employed him to travel to Los Angeles, Hawaii and South America to smuggle cocaine into Australia.

Fellows came to know drug dealer William Sinclair, who took him to Bangkok, Thailand where he was introduced to Neddy Smith and made his first successful attempt at smuggling heroin into Australia.

After returning to Australia, Neddy Smith who was impressed with his smuggling skills, contacted Fellows and offered him a job.

Smith did not have the notoriety he had later, but was already a major and feared figure in the Sydney criminal world.

Fellows claims he became involved with Smith because he was "young and impressionable" and flattered that he "was liked by a man most people were terrified of".

Fellows worked for Smith as a drug courier, domestically and internationally.

Warren Fellows (born 13 September 1953) is an Australian former drug courier who was sentenced to life imprisonment in Thailand in 1978 for his role in a heroin trafficking operation that took place from Perth to Bangkok.

In his best-selling book The Damage Done, Fellows describes the violence and harsh conditions he experienced in Thailand prisons.

Fellows was born in Sydney, Australia.

Hayward played professional rugby league with the Newtown Jets and had been selected to represent Australia as a boxer at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada.

Hayward had done "favours" for Smith, but this was his first international job.

Fellows and Hayward became best friends.

Prior to leaving Australia, Fellows was tipped off by a friend with a police contact at Manly, that the Commonwealth Police believed he was involved in a large drug importation operation and had him under surveillance.

Fellows reported this to Smith who dismissed it, claiming that he would have been informed if it were true.

Smith insisted they continue with the job.

Hayward and Fellows became increasingly apprehensive, but after Smith lost his patience with them and made implied threats, they reluctantly agreed to go through with the trip.

Fellows was particularly anxious about returning to Bangkok.

In October 1978, Smith instructed Fellows to again travel to Bangkok, this time in the company of Smith's brother-in-law Paul Hayward.

During his last trip in February 1978, he had been forced to abandon a package of heroin he had been attempting to ship back to Australia and feared that Thai police may have found it and been able to trace the drugs back to him.

So Fellows procured a false passport through a friend, in the name of a deceased child Gregory Hastings Barker.

Smith later said that Fellows got done because he booked his flight using Smith's telephone, although Fellows says that he cannot remember whether he booked it with Smith's phone or not.

On arriving in Thailand, Fellows and Hayward met William Sinclair by chance.

Sinclair now lived in Bangkok and owned the Texas Bar.

Sinclair took them to his bar, and in a drunken state, attempted to obtain information from them about their trip.

Unbeknown to them, the trio were under surveillance and the meeting appeared to police to incriminate Sinclair, even though according to Fellows, he was not involved.

Fellows claims that there were many warning signs and that the night before they were arrested he had a "moment of clarity" and resolved to wash the heroin down the bath drain.

But he fell asleep and was woken in the morning by police.

On 12 October 1978, the rooms occupied by Fellows and Hayward at the Montien Hotel in Bangkok were raided by Thai police.

The pair were arrested when 8.5 kilograms of heroin was found in a suitcase in Hayward's room.